'Pay up' Tom told

2008-08-25 11:17

Berlin - Eleven extras hurt in August last year during shooting for Tom Cruise's film Valkyrie on a plot to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler are to seek compensation, a German news report said on Sunday.

The German extras are demanding $11m in compensation from Cruise and production company United Artists (UA), Focus news magazine reported.

They fell off a period vehicle from the 1940s when one of its sides collapsed as it rounded a bend in Berlin.

According to the report, their Berlin lawyer, Ariane Bluttner, has warned the group will take their case to a Californian court if the compensation is not paid.

The extras suffered bruises and head wounds. Cruise was not present when the accident occurred.

Valkyrie relates the July 20 1944 plot to blow up Hitler's Eastern Front military headquarters in Poland, called the Wolf's Lair, while the Nazi dictator was holding a war conference there.

In the film, Cruise plays Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the Wehrmacht colonel who placed the bomb, which failed to kill Hitler. Stauffenberg and his co-plotters were executed.

Cruise is a producer at UA, a subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. - dpa

- SAPA