Backfiring Pranks: Tom Cruise's Moment Of 'Valkyrie' Silence Destroyed By Mystery Fartiste

All the hard work that Tom Cruise and the Valkyrie team spent convincing a stubbornly indecisive German government to allow their film to shoot in the Bendlerblock, one of its most hallowed landmarks, was nearly squandered when a pranstker insensitive to their shooting location's place in the country's history decided to interrupt a respectful moment of silence with a perfectly timed fart-take. According to a report in the Daily Mail that's denser with flatulence synonyms than perhaps any piece of prose we've ever read, Cruise was allegedly less than amused:

Despite the Emission Impossible, Christian Berkel, 49 - who plays anti-Hitler plotter Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim - said: "The film's director Bryan Singer, the screenplay writer Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise asked us all to observe a moment's silence shortly before we started filming. "It was a very moving moment." But our man with the dead canary in a cage added: "Fortunately the mystery trumper didn't completely ruin the touching gesture.

"We had faced a great deal of opposition from the German government, who only gave us the go-ahead when we insisted we would show post-war Germany in a positive light. Quite rightly, Tom is furious. We were filming at the Bendler Block in Germany, where the anti-Nazis were executed.

"So Bryan and Tom asked for a minute's silence out of respect for the place and in memory of the war heroes who died there.

"For somebody to pass wind in a situation like that is unforgivable." [...]

Our sniffing spy concluded: "There is footage of the cast and crew during the silence. And the movie bigwigs will use this to find out who the culprit was.

"It wasn't just a disrespectful thing to do, it was also very foolish because he will definitely get caught."

The act of disrespect had to be especially galling to Cruise, who had shown almost superhuman restraint in resisting his impulses to pay back the institutionally Hubbard-averse Germans by redecorating their precious landmark as a street-fair-quality Dianetics stall, complete with garish cardboard standees depicting exploding volcanoes and PAs administering personality tests. Whenever Cruise reviews the footage and discovers the identity of the "mystery trumper" (a phrase we've just heard for the first time), you can be sure that the best job he can find in Hollywood will involve bussing tables at the Celebrity Centre's weekly brunch on the days that the Indiana Jones secret-leaker is unavailable.

• TOM CRUISE STARS IN EMISSION IMPOSSIBLE, HE'S FUMING OVER PHANTOM FARTER [Daily Mail]