TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Warner Bros. does pretty well in the picture business--and now finds itself also selling armaments.

That is, the London office is selling 60 M-16 guns, 50 M-14 guns, two M-60 machine guns; 40 AK-47s and “a lot of extraneous war supplies” (like flak jackets and hand grenades).

It’s all leftover from Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War production of “Full Metal Jacket,” due this summer. (Kubrick lives in England and won’t get on a airplane, so he re-created his Southeast Asian locales in the city of Beckton near London.)

The weapons sale, in keeping with government regulations, is being conducted by an arms dealer, and the militaria only shoots blanks. Since this arsenal might be great inventory for the next Vietnam movie, the sale’s being hawked in the industry trades.

“The sale is proof that we’ve definitely finished shooting the picture,” said Julian Senior, ad/publicity VP for Warners in Europe. He was referring to the four long years it has been since Kubrick first sent out a casting call for “Metal,” a $16.5 million production that started shooting two years ago.

“With most films, you usually just rent your props. With a Stanley Kubrick film, it’s sometimes best to buy them,” mused Senior.

Kubrick is a known nut for authenticity and, for “Jacket,” assistants prowled the continent searching for Vietnam-era military items. They found their tanks after a Belgian lieutenant colonel--who is “a great Kubrick fan”--read about the search in a weapons-buff newsletter. The result? Six M-47 tanks, on rental, from the Belgian Army.

But getting the tanks to England took some doing. They were barged across the English Channel, then trucked to “jungle” locations in and around London. When the tanks’ tour of duty ended, they were supposed to be returned to Belgium. But, whoops! There was a snafu on the set. When the Belgian Army called, wondering where its tanks were, a curious Senior hiked over to the film’s production office where a Kubrick rep said, “Tanks? I thought we’d returned them!”