"Nowhere to go" Film Scenes

Could have been done on the isle of dogs. The prison gates is a matte painting. The dock walls such as the East India Docks were there until the seventies.

I don't think it can be a studio - that is a very real train running through it.

The locomotive 43019 was allocated to Cricklewood at the time, which suggests the Midland Main line, or the Tottenham & Hampstead (Goblin) or perhaps the Dudding Hill line might be the places to look first. That high retaining wall is very distinctive. would expect the top of the wall to be the boundary of railway property, hence the absence of any fencing-off of the far platform.

www.abandonedstations.org.uk/Goblin.html

It could be Highgate Road Low Level station (on the spur connecting the Goblin to the MML). The station, clearly derelict in the film, closed in 1918, but the line remains open to this day. However, I can find very few photos of the area.

The car, incidentally, is a Ford Zephyr convertible - both the car and the registration LFE 2 would be highly desirable today. The convertibles tended not to last very well as the absence of a roof made them structurally weaker. If I were planning a prison breakout I would use something a bit less conspicuous.

[According to JE Connor in Middleton Press's London Suburban Railways St Pancras to Barking,ISBN 1904474683, Highgate Road HL was demolished at some point before the 1940's, as the photo therein of ex-WD 2-8-0 63173 receiving attention from a crew member in the late 1940's indicates.

Whilst the LL platform remains were, according to JE Connor, swept away along with the covered footbridge connecting LL & HL in the 1930's.

For the Dudding Hill Line, London's Disused Stations Vol 7, Connor & Butler publications, by JE Connor, ISBN 9780947699422, the Dudding Hill station buildings weren't demolished until 1989, despite the last passenger train calling in 1903!!!

There is also an embankment on the other platform side, which would fit the bill, too. As would the curve in the line as it enters the station.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatsoever for a platform canopy of any sort at Dudding Hill from at least the time of passenger closure, so unless they added one for the film, that rules it out. Equally, to illustrate that curve in the rails correctly as they enter the station, the two platforms at Dudding Hill are the wrong way round. Unless, of course, there's another distinctive rail curve leaving Dudding Hill, over to you, Norby, because I don't have a photo of that end to confirm or deny.

Harlesden, t'other station on the Dudding Hill chord, had its' station building/ticket office on the road bridge over the railway, so that's of little help, unless they built a whole station for the film.

Possible that other early closures roundabout those parts like Haverstock Hill might fit the bill, I'll read up later.

Agree regarding the getaway car-unless he's going to flog it for cash to finance life on the run. Because the Harry Corbett in the credits isn't the man associated with Sooty, it's Harold Steptoe's Harry H Corbett in an earlier guise.[/quote]

And I'm looking at the "Britain from above" web page, hopefully we'll find the answer!

Here's the photographic evidence of Millwall Junction through the ages (thanks to Subterranea Brittanica/Disused Stations & Nick Catford photography):

Millwall Junction


Note, in the link, there's an opportunity to click here for further photographs on the bottom of the page.

But there are walls at one of the termini Millwall Junction once served, Blackwall-thanks again Nick Catford & Subterranea Brittanica~:

blackwall

I know there were a large number of freight depots around there, too, lingering long after passenger closure at MJ & co.

I wonder if there was a Midland Railway one still extant in 1958, which would explain how 43019 ended up in East London for the shoot?

You just beat me to it.

I hadn't thought that far afield, since almost everything in that area had at least three - if not four! rails. Indeed electric trains from Broad Street served those platforms from 1916 until the service was suspended indefinitely in 1940. (this was the rump of the original route to Richmond, via Kew East Curve and the long-gone Barnes West curve, superseded by the direct route via Gunnersbury in 1869)

The 3rd and 4th rails must have been removed sometime in the subsequent 18 years.

This is the same scene today
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4896517,-0.2869398,3a,15y,350.43h,84.23t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sv_BK1ZvYF8WDjUiMABb_Jw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Was the high wall built for the scene then - or was there something taller there in 1958?,

Would have been very handy for Ealing Studios, but in fact the film, despite being made under the Ealing name, it was made at MGM's studios in Elstree.

Here's an aerial view of Brentford Market - the wall does look quite high.
www.brentfordhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/Brentford-Market-c1970.jpg

The caption says c1970, but it must be about forty years older - the Chiswick flyover is missing which puts it prior to 1959, but the presence of the Great West Road means it is after 1925. There are things looking suspiciously like tramlines in the streets, which dates it to before c1935 (by which time trolleybuses had taken over the routes through Brentford). The LM platforms of the station don't look as dilapidated as they should if they had been closed for thirty years either!

There also appear to be buildings surmounting it along part of its length, which correspond to the lit windows seen above the wall in the film.

Sorry, but I can find no reference to any station called Brentford Market, can anyone provide more info, because Kew Bridge clearly fits the film's opening titles apart from the wall, which could be a studio shot spliced in?

If it's Brentford Dock you speak of, I've got a March 1958 photo and the trackwork there is far more complicated than as sen in the film. Plus it was operational until 1970.

Cheers, thanks for that heads-up, afraid Brentford is about as familiar to me as Brentwood!

Now, what about the prison used?

Well done, I think you've cracked it!

The credits on the front don't acknowledge it-can't get the full movie on YouTube to check the end credits, but thought we might as well share Dame Maggie



a-pouting in her Renault Dauphine;and yes, the TUC registration ran from February-December 1957 in London CC.

Kent coalfield? Bit of a long shot?
Also a mixture of wooden and steel bodies, so unlikely to be a train of either new or condemned stock.
I have the film recorded and will check the end credits

There are no end credits, just "The End" and "made at MGM British Studios". So no credit for the LMR.
Arun, I know the Kent coalfield was rail-dependent and the SR was involved with it. Just doubtful that a train of empties would be run round that curve in that direction!