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Post by trumperscrossing on Aug 23, 2014 21:09:36 GMT
I recently read Geoffrey Household's book "Rogue Male" that includes a chapter where the hero is stalked by potential assassins around Holborn and Aldwych Stations. The chapter concludes with a death on the tracks.
I have found an audio book version of the book on Youtube. The chapter in question starts at around 26.40
Much of the Holborn action could still occur in the station as it is now. I only used Aldwych on or twice, so can not comment on the accuracy there.
What other examples are people familiar with. There must been hundreds of books and stories written over the years and dozens of films. Are there any great epic tube poems?
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 23, 2014 22:00:45 GMT
What other examples are people familiar with. Just been reading "Murder Underground" by Mavis Doriel Hay, written and set in 1934 at and around Belsize Park station (the victim is found on the emergency stairs). And of course there is "The Bruce-Partington Plans" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where the victim is found on the track at Aldgate For inaccuracy, you can't beat "The Holmes Affair" by Graham Moore - set in 1900 and 2012, and written by someone so unfamiliar with London he doesn't even know which side of the road we drive on. So bad it's funny. Specifically transport related, we have our hero (Conan Doyle) taking a train from Stepney to London and arriving at Waterloo, a young lady from out of town (West Hampstead!) taking the Great Northern Railway to Kings Cross, and our hero (again) taking a Hansom cab from Clerkenwell to Hindhead and back in three hours - enter that horse for the Derby! Another one with woefully poor geography is Michael Crichton's "First Great Train Robbery", set in the 1850s, which among other things has Greenwich as half a day's train journey from London (our anti-hero cannot get there the same day if he misses the noon train - in practice he could walk there in an hour or two!) and also has Ostend in France.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 23, 2014 22:28:53 GMT
Sir John Betjeman, in 1951, read a story on the radio late at night about an unsuspecting commuter who inadvertently gets off at the closed South Kentish Town station when the train stops there for a signal and...................
Aldwych(where else?)was the scene for shooting our very own Prime Minister's favourite pop video-Firestarter by Prodigy.
And there was even a series in 1897's To-day magazine about a disgruntled mechanical engineer who bore a grudge against the District Line, and so murdered an unlucky passenger thereon every Tuesday evening.
Fictional, but convincing enough for the series to be dropped after strong entreaties from the District Line.
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Post by revupminster on Aug 24, 2014 6:34:55 GMT
Death Line is a classic Zombie eating Underground construction workers and their wives trapped below ground after a cave in and left to die. The only words they speak are "Mind the Gap" Had some location work, probably Aldwych.
Department S episode "Last Train to Redbridge" had accurate uniforms of the day (yellow piping, buses had blue piping, and Griffins) Location work at Aldwych doubling as the fictional Post Office station and what looks like White City depot and a small stretch of cutting on the Central Line near White City.
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Post by siriami on Aug 27, 2014 9:13:57 GMT
Rogue Male was made into a film and re-titled "Man Hunt", directed by Fritz Lang. The Underground sequence is there - although it is definitely 20th Century-Fox's idea of what London Underground looked like - more Bronx than Bakerloo! Coincidentally, just watched the Blu-ray of this excellent film the other night. Alistair
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Post by John Tuthill on Aug 27, 2014 9:43:50 GMT
Rogue Male was made into a film and re-titled "Man Hunt", directed by Fritz Lang. The Underground sequence is there - although it is definitely 20th Century-Fox's idea of what London Underground looked like - more Bronx than Bakerloo! Coincidentally, just watched the Blu-ray of this excellent film the other night. Alistair The two films that an old codger like me will remember are: 'The Good Die Young' Lawrence Harvey was the chief baddy, with Stanley Baker(Zulu) where after a Post Office van robbery they all end up being chased, the chase ending around 'Aldersgate & Barbican' station as it was then known as. Lots of lovely shots of Met trains, the other was a short 'B' film called 'The Last Train' one of a series of 'factual' stories from the Met.Police. They only lasted about 30 minutes, were made by Merton Park Studios in Wimbledon. The plot was a dead body found by the guard on a 38 stock, at some fictitious station, probably Aldwych. There are several of these short films on You Tube, the fun is noticing a small, usually uncredited part future stars had in these films. Harry H. Corbett is in one, blink and you'll miss him.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 27, 2014 9:53:11 GMT
The BBC made a very good version of Rogue Male in 1976 with Peter O'Toole in the lead role. The tube scenes were very realistic - not surprising as they were filmed at the real Aldwych station, albeit nearly forty years after the time the story was set! Although I don't think the film-makers went to the length of using the authentic converted gate stock which would have been correct for 1939!)
"Much of the Holborn action could still occur in the station as it is now" Well, except you'd have a long wait for a train to Aldwych!
Has anyone mentioned the Doctor Who story "The Web of Fear", from c 1968. Long thought toi have been wiped, but copies were recently discovered in Nigeria, and recently re-released on DVD. Robotic yeti roaming the Underground. (It is also the story that introduced Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to the show) . London Transport gave the BBC a telling-off for filming in the tunnels without permission: until the BBC showed them the set they had actually used. (Given the reputation Doctor Who had at the time for wobbly sets this shows uncharteristic realism!)
The Blue Lamp, with Jack Warner and Dirk Bogarde, has a brief scenewhere the crooks try to escape across an open-air section of the Underground - the right hand running and Standard stock suggest the Central Line near White City.
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Post by John Tuthill on Aug 27, 2014 10:05:18 GMT
The BBC made a very good version of Rogue Male in 1976 with Peter O'Toole in the lead role. The tube scenes were very realistic - not surprising as they were filmed at the real Aldwych station, albeit nearly forty years after the time the story was set! Although I don't think the film-makers went to the length of using the authentic converted gate stock which would have been correct for 1939!) "Much of the Holborn action could still occur in the station as it is now" Well, except you'd have a long wait for a train to Aldwych! Has anyone mentioned the Doctor Who story "The Web of Fear", from c 1968. Long thought toi have been wiped, but copies were recently discovered in Nigeria, and recently re-released on DVD. Robotic yeti roaming the Underground. (It is also the story that introduced Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart to the show) . London Transport gave the BBC a telling-off for filming in the tunnels without permission: until the BBC showed them the set they had actually used. (Given the reputation Doctor Who had at the time for wobbly sets this shows uncharteristic realism!) The Blue Lamp, with Jack Warner and Dirk Bogarde, has a brief scenewhere the crooks try to escape across an open-air section of the Underground - the right hand running and Standard stock suggest the Central Line near White City. You're correct. The chase finishes up in the White City Stadium when it was used for greyhound racing. When you see the car chases in this film, all done around Notting Hill and Latimer Road areas, there is no 'back crancked' camera work, the drivers were reportedly off duty coppers.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 27, 2014 10:10:49 GMT
Edgar Lustgarten to you, mate!
Here's a link to the entire series of Scotland Yard mysteries out of Merton Park.
edgarL
Remember the allegedly awful mistake in Isadora, as Glenda Jackson pulls into a terminus simply called "London"? Well, the first ECR terminus at Shoreditch was originally called-London, from about 1842-44! Just 80 years out of date in the film.
Would have been intriguing if Chaucer's Canterbury Tales could have started on the Bakerloo Line at Lambeth North before reaching Charing Cross for the Canterbury train?!
Back on subject completely, Aldwych also features as a backdrop in Superman IV, The Krays & Patriot Games.
Meanwhile, Iris Murdoch's 1975 'A World Child' has a very evocative passage about the two remaining station buffets on Underground platforms.
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Post by CSLR on Aug 27, 2014 10:46:29 GMT
Off the top of my head, surely there was a Bulldog Drummond film in which he rode down the emergency staircase of a tube station on a tea-tray, followed by shots of standard stock?
Also did not Passport to Pimlico have a scene where a Distict (?) line train is stopped for a customs check at the Pimlico border; although I cannot remember if this was a studio set.
No-one mentioned Lord of the Dynamos by H G Wells (1894), which he based on a visit to the C&SLR generating station at Stockwell or the TV series in which an episode centres around a train accident in the tunnel near to King William Street station............
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 27, 2014 11:52:33 GMT
Off the top of my head, surely there was a Bulldog Drummond film in which he rode down the emergency staircase of a tube station on a tea-tray, followed by shots of standard stock? Also did not Passport to Pimlico have a scene where a Distict (?) line train is stopped for a customs check at the Pimlico border; although I cannot remember if this was a studio set. No-one mentioned Lord of the Dynamos by H G Wells (1894), which he based on a visit to the C&SLR generating station at Stockwell or the TV series in which an episode centres around a train accident in the tunnel near to King William Street station............ Pimlico, vide Wiki: The outdoor scenes were actually shot about a mile away in Lambeth and not in Pimlico. A set was built on a large Second World War bombsite just south of the Lambeth Road at the junction of Hercules Road. This has now been built on by 1960s municipal flats; however, the buildings on the junction of Hercules Road and Lambeth Road can still be recognised from the film as can the railway bridge going over Lambeth Road, particularly from the scenes where food is thrown to the "Burgundians".
And, from the Grauniad in 2012: Still, at least the set was a good replica. Think Bulldog Jack(1935)is the Drummond film. This is set on British Museum station(CL), but set is the operative word, as it's Bloomsbury Station. Thank you, JE Connor & London's disused Underground Stations for this: As for the man from Bromley, we are still working on the TV series & King William Street; can state it was not the awful efforts on the Invisible Man in 1958/9: in which Johnny Scripps provides the body under the crepe bandages, nor the David McCullum revival(1975-6), in which he should have adopted that disguise strategy to hide his embarrassment!
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 27, 2014 12:44:00 GMT
Pimlico, vide Wiki: The outdoor scenes were actually shot about a mile away in Lambeth and not in Pimlico. A set was built on a large Second World War bombsite just south of the Lambeth Road at the junction of Hercules Road. Thankyou - that had always confused me - I had assumed it was filmed somewhere under the Brighton lineas that passes through Pimlico (although I guessed a site in Battersea was used) and that the trains seen on the viaduct were mainly PUL/PAN stock, but they didn't look quite right. I'll look at them again now I know we're on the SWML. Trams are seen in one scene - I don't think they ever got to Pimlico Still, at least the set was a good replica. However, at least one external shot was taken using a real G stock train polishrail.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/film-competition-%e2%80%93-part-11/#comments
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Post by John Tuthill on Aug 27, 2014 13:34:03 GMT
Pimlico, vide Wiki: The outdoor scenes were actually shot about a mile away in Lambeth and not in Pimlico. A set was built on a large Second World War bombsite just south of the Lambeth Road at the junction of Hercules Road. If you go on Google Map, to the junction of Lambeth Road & Hercules Road with the view looking up Hercules Road, the building next to the railway was the offices of Beck & Pollizer, they were heavy removal people, this is seen in the film. With that view, the flats directly behind you are where the set was built. In some long shots you will see a No3 bus and an E type tram both 'correct' for Lambeth Road. It did confuse me when I was about 10 knowing that trams never went thru' Pimlico
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 27, 2014 14:43:25 GMT
Pimlico, vide Wiki: The outdoor scenes were actually shot about a mile away in Lambeth and not in Pimlico. A set was built on a large Second World War bombsite just south of the Lambeth Road at the junction of Hercules Road. Thankyou - that had always confused me - I had assumed it was filmed somewhere under the Brighton lineas that passes through Pimlico (although I guessed a site in Battersea was used) and that the trains seen on the viaduct were mainly PUL/PAN stock, but they didn't look quite right. I'll look at them again now I know we're on the SWML. Trams are seen in one scene - I don't think they ever got to Pimlico Still, at least the set was a good replica. However, at least one external shot was taken using a real G stock train polishrail.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/film-competition-%e2%80%93-part-11/#commentsThanks for that-the process shots emphasise just what a good job they did do on the set replica. Ealing Films' reputation was well-deserved. And that brings me to It Always Rains On Sunday(1947), Jack Warner as the cop pursuing escaped convict John McCallum, whilst the ex-apple of John's eye, bairmaid Googie Withers, has problems with her eldest daughter(Susan Shaw) being attracted to the charms of a handsome gigolo/musician. Whether the problems are with the unsuitability of such a romance for her daughter, or the unsuitability of Sydney Tafler+(honest!)a year before HE appeared in Passport to Pimlico for that sort of role is immaterial, because the film is based in Bethnal Green and has a climax on the rails, about which reelsites.com tells us: The climax to the chase at the end was filmed at Temple Mills Marshalling Yards, Leyton. In those days they were a mish mash of various yards but were completely modernised in the 1950s. Not much left now, and the new Eurostar depot has been built on the site.So, at least the right bit of London & nearly on the Tube, although don't take Wiki too literally on this about Jack Warner effecting an arrest to finally end the chase. Afraid the film version has the obvious and unpleasant cliché you expect when someone goes on the train tracks without authority, as the moderators would be the first to echo as a warning, I'm sure Another one nearly on the map is 1957's Night of the Demon. No, it isn't actually Clapham Common whence Niall MacGinnis meets a bad end-it's Brickett Wood Station, Herts. But, the interesting thing, listen to SW trains EMU's today and they still, when starting to accelerate away from a station stop, produce exactly the same opening notes as the demon's appearance introduces to the film. We stayed at Twickenham 18 months ago & our Travelodge was right by the station. This sound was so familiar to my wife & I, we couldn't put a finger on it, but after three days, the penny dropped and we suddenly realised where we'd heard it before. The film would doubtlessly have played around a little with a tape recording of it, before the finished soundtrack was laid down, but that was the definite source of it. += To be fair to Sydney Tafler, he did get to appear in Criterion Films' 1956 magnum opus Fire Maidens From Outer Space and therein not only manage to 'pull' from a veritable bevy of beautiful but naice & proper English Schoolgirls(finishing school, style!) who originate from the lost continent of Atlantis, but pitches his woo on their home, the un-named 13th moon of Jupiter, the surface of which satellite bears an extraordinary resemblance to the Hog's Back off the A3 at Guildford.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 27, 2014 14:49:42 GMT
If you go on Google Map, to the junction of Lambeth Road & Hercules Road with the view looking up Hercules Road, No need to look on Google Map - I'll just have a look tonight. I must have been over that bridge about 10,000 times and never realised! Compare now with thenor then with now - note the distinctive pattern of the brickwork.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 27, 2014 15:20:38 GMT
Another one nearly on the map is 1957's Night of the Demon. No, it isn't actually Clapham Common whence Niall MacGinnis meets a bad end-it's Brickett Wood Station, Herts. But, the interesting thing, listen to SW trains EMU's today and they still, when starting to accelerate away from a station stop, produce exactly the same opening notes as the demon's appearance introduces to the film. The EE507 traction motors still found under SWT's Class 455s were originally developed for the 4SUBs in 1936, so that is not as unlikely as it might seem. (There is a programme about to start to replace the motors with ac ones - the supply will of course still be dc!) There were of course no electric trains at Brickett Wood in 1957, but film soundtracks often muck about with such things. (BBC Newsreel footage at one time clearly had a "train" soundtrack which was stuck on any train footage they had available, be it a "Western" diesel or a TGV: unfortuantely it was the distinctive whistle of a class 40 at idle, which made for some very incongruous images.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 27, 2014 16:09:41 GMT
A couple of others which I can't name.
Both are British black & white B-movies of the 1950's and both with Tube shoot-ups very much modelled on the sewer shoot-up in The Third Man. Apart from the lack of a visibly-ginger and white station cat!
In one, the villain steps out to finish the hero, who's slumped against the tunnel wall with a bullet in his shoulder, but the villain didn't consult the timetables, so............
In the other, it's the villain that's winged, but somehow manages to board the Tube train which stops when it sees figures on the track & then accelerates away again!
Anybody help? I can remember both clear as day, because of the ridiculous endings to the shoot-outs.
And, for fans of Ealing Films, guess which budding youth actor from 1947, who in that year starred alongside Alistair Sim(as the editor of a boys' newspaper) AND Jack Warner(as a cackling greengrocer with a dark alter-ego-I kid you not ), was another leading lady-chaser astronaut in Fire Maidens From Outer Space------------------?
Yes, you knew, Harry Fowler, another Renaissance romantic leading light-and a full two years before The Army Game, too!!
Plus, yes, Susan Shaw turns up as Hestia, the friendliest of the 'Daughters of the New Atlantis', only she is interested in American leader of the space flight, Anthony Dexter.
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Post by John Tuthill on Aug 27, 2014 18:33:25 GMT
A couple of others which I can't name.
Both are British black & white B-movies of the 1950's and both with Tube shoot-ups very much modelled on the sewer shoot-up in The Third Man. Apart from the lack of a visibly-ginger and white station cat!
In one, the villain steps out to finish the hero, who's slumped against the tunnel wall with a bullet in his shoulder, but the villain didn't consult the timetables, so............
In the other, it's the villain that's winged, but somehow manages to board the Tube train which stops when it sees figures on the track & then accelerates away again!
Anybody help? I can remember both clear as day, because of the ridiculous endings to the shoot-outs.
Can you name any of the actors?
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 27, 2014 19:08:27 GMT
Another one nearly on the map is 1957's Night of the Demon. No, it isn't actually Clapham Common whence Niall MacGinnis meets a bad end-it's Brickett Wood Station, Herts. But, the interesting thing, listen to SW trains EMU's today and they still, when starting to accelerate away from a station stop, produce exactly the same opening notes as the demon's appearance introduces to the film. The EE507 traction motors still found under SWT's Class 455s were originally developed for the 4SUBs in 1936, so that is not as unlikely as it might seem. (There is a programme about to start to replace the motors with ac ones - the supply will of course still be dc!) There were of course no electric trains at Brickett Wood in 1957, but film soundtracks often muck about with such things. (BBC Newsreel footage at one time clearly had a "train" soundtrack which was stuck on any train footage they had available, be it a "Western" diesel or a TGV: unfortuantely it was the distinctive whistle of a class 40 at idle, which made for some very incongruous images. Thanks-it's very nice to know it actually could have been the case. So, we might as well all see the end! You might notice the lack of a 3rd rail at Brickett Wood in that, so quite how Nial MacGinnis ends up smoking by the track..................!
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Post by CSLR on Aug 27, 2014 21:32:43 GMT
we are still working on the TV series & King William Street; can state it was not the awful efforts on the Invisible Man in 1958/9: Correct. It was not the Invisible Man. I was referring to the Bramwell series that was screened on ITV between 1995-1998. This followed the adventures of a woman trying to establish herself as a doctor in the late Victorian period. In series 2, episode 1, the plot focuses on an imaginary accident in which a rail penetrates the floor of a C&SLR train just outside King William Street station. The producers went to great lengths to ensure that such an incident could have happened and to confirm the exact point at which a rail might have entered a carriage. They then built an exact replica of the interior of a padded cell for studio filming. The replica was exceptionally good, although it was copied from the LTM carriage so it was 'restored' padded cell as opposed to completely original condition. With much of the episode budget going on construction of the replica carriage and the associated studio time, the other railway scenes were shot on location. The producers gave LU a script and a request to be given access to shoot on the correct period sites. Predictably they were given Aldwych (complete with fourth rail) for the tunnel shots and Covent Garden (with Yerkes railway tiling) as a stand-in for the King William Street booking hall. These errors only came to light after the shooting and editing of these sequences was complete, by which time it was too late to do anything.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 27, 2014 22:05:30 GMT
Well now, my wife watched that series and remembers that episode! Especially the padded cell, the dimensions portrayed making her grateful she'd only commuted on the Northern Line between Kings Cross & Bank long after they might have been about.
She wondered at the time how authentic that carriage was, I'd completely forgotten about it, but she's happy that my alleged 'probably quite' at the time was fairly accurate.
I must say HG Wells was a little over-imaginative with Lord Of The Dynamos, as he placed the generating station in my neck of the woods, Camberwell. Still, he did give us War of The Worlds, The Time Machine etc.
A couple more-Agatha Christie's The Man In The Brown Suit(1924);the mystery begins with a passenger's death at Hyde Park Corner station.
Tobias Hill's Underground(1999)involves South Kentish Town a great deal.
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Post by CSLR on Aug 27, 2014 22:41:09 GMT
I must say HG Wells was a little over-imaginative with Lord Of The Dynamos, as he placed the generating station in my neck of the woods, Camberwell. Generating stations were a real novelty in the 1890s and most people did not know anything about them. The C&SLR cashed in on this by allowing members of the public to visit the building and view its generators at work, for an admission fee. As I understand it, H G Wells went to Stockwell depot to see this new technology and in doing so got the idea for this short story. Because of the nature of the events that occurred in Wells fictional account*, I believe that he deemed it prudent to move the location slightly so as not to associate the storyline with a real company. * For the sake of those who have not read the story, I will not outline the plot here. Having exchanged comments with others, I think the general consensus would be not to raise your expectations too high before reading it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 3:08:09 GMT
There's the film "Sliding Doors," which narrates two alternative realities. Basically right near the start of the film, the main character is running for a train. In one reality, she makes the train and her life unfolds in a certain way, while in another she misses it (her shoe slips off, iirc) and her life unfolds in a largely different way, although there are parallels. The film constantly switches between the two different realities, showing events in the first reality, then the alternative events in the second reality. And essentially it's not a bad little pop-philosophy film about parallel universes and tiny decisions and events and the huge impacts they can have and how your life can hinge on the tiniest thing. It's quite funny, I quite liked it, but it's hardly a philosophical tour de force. Anyway, from Wiki (doubt if you will ): By the way, I think Waterloo was substituting for Embankment, cause the Drain's obviously fairly good for filming on a weekend. Also, wasn't Charing Cross (disused Jubilee line platforms) used in a recent Thor film?
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 28, 2014 10:52:33 GMT
"Sliding Doors," In one reality, she makes the train while in another she misses it (her shoe slips off, iirc) No - it's a very little thing - in one reality she is momentarily delayed on the stairs by a small child - in the other Mum pulls the child out of her way. (the stairs are those leading down to the arrival platform at Waterloo: in real life no psaanger would ever be running for a train down those stairs: but then, there are other incosistencies if you realise it's the W&C (with the 1992 stock in its original NSE colours) - people already on the train when it arrives: the man she meets on the train having to explain he's not following her when he gets off at the next stop (which isn't Bank anyway - it's Waterloo again!). There is at least one location shot at Bank - on the Travolator. But, as is clear from the announcement she hears after missing the train - it is supposed to be the District Line The film constantly switches between the two different realities, showing events in the first reality, then the alternative events in the second reality.. It is surprisingly easy to follow because, for perfectly solid plot reasons, one of the first things she does in Reality One is have her long hair cut short, but keeps it long in Reality Two. I'm not usually a fan of rom-coms, but as you can probably tell, I like this one.
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Post by brigham on Aug 28, 2014 15:59:37 GMT
Hitch gets his hat pulled down over his eyes by an annoying kid, on a tube train in the film 'Blackmail'.
Every time I see the scene, I want to hit that kid! Is he anyone famous?
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Post by siriami on Aug 29, 2014 8:01:01 GMT
And doesn't the British film "The Yellow Balloon" have a chase sequence on the Underground at the end where the boy is pursued by the villain? I seem to remember underground, rather than sub-surface, with stairs and cross passageways involved? Alistair
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 29, 2014 10:08:02 GMT
And doesn't the British film "The Yellow Balloon" have a chase sequence on the Underground at the end where the boy is pursued by the villain? I seem to remember underground, rather than sub-surface, with stairs and cross passageways involved? Alistair Yes, according to J Lee Thompson, director, they only had one shot from an actual underground station and the rest was studio set. It's likeliest Gloucester Road was used as the working station shot, but we should remember Aldwych at that time(1953)still had a disused platform, out of action since 1917, so maybe there were actually two involved in Yellow Balloon.
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