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Post by norbitonflyer on Jan 11, 2016 13:52:30 GMT
I don't think the BR staff would have taken part in that without management approval, but I wonder if the management just told Ealing Films/MGM to go ahead and pay the railwaymen approved BR overtime rates, once they were assured the train movements presented no danger. Elfin safety may have been more lax in 1958, but even then I don't think BR would have countenanced actors running across active railway lines (let alone apparently mounting a camera on one - see c4:43) without closing the line to traffic. Note that the train does not appear in the same shot as any actors and was probably filmed before or after the line was shut for the escape scenes. |
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Post by theblackferret on Jan 11, 2016 14:09:09 GMT
I don't think the BR staff would have taken part in that without management approval, but I wonder if the management just told Ealing Films/MGM to go ahead and pay the railwaymen approved BR overtime rates, once they were assured the train movements presented no danger. Elfin safety may have been more lax in 1958, but even then I don't think BR would have countenanced actors running across active railway lines (let alone apparently mounting a camera on one - see c4:43) without closing the line to traffic. Note that the train does not appear in the same shot as any actors and was probably filmed before or after the line was shut for the escape scenes. If that be the case, do you think that particular line could have been best shut at night, without impinging on existing train paths? The train could certainly have been filmed separately from the actors, but given what stapler accurately remarked was the unlikely make-up of the freight train, maybe that was filmed "after hours" as well, but with no actors or camera on the tracks. |
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Post by stapler on Jan 11, 2016 14:54:24 GMT
Also, knowing producers - I've been an advisor on several film sets - I doubt they'd have been satisfied with a single take; they'd have wanted three or four in the can!
My guess is that MGM paid BR to have exclusive use of the station and a train of a certain length at a time the spur wasn't in general use; the crews (MGM and BR) would be under the control of a BR inspector for safety reasons, working to a special train notice.
As for the train, there were spare wagons everywhere in the 50s; abandoned lines were often used to store them, so a train of 50 assorted empties could easily have been rustled up.
Someone will have a WTT for 1957 somewhere, and could answer which hours the spur was in use.........
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Post by norbitonflyer on Jan 11, 2016 15:44:33 GMT
I was going to suggest that by the time the brake van came into view the loco would have been well past the junction with the Hounslow Loop line towards Chiswick, but looking at Carto Metro I see that the "up" lines do not converge until just before the bridge carrying the District Line over the Loop. (The divergence of the down lines is much close to the South Circular road bridge and the station.
Assumoing the layout was the same in 1958, it would therefore have been possible to run quite a long train backwards and forwards through the station without impinging on the Hounslow line, or indeed on anything running on the west side of the triangle from South Acton towards Hounslow. Notice that the take starts with the train already in the station.
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Post by theblackferret on Jan 11, 2016 16:17:36 GMT
Just for once, nothing to do with railways or cars, see Kenneth Tynan is noted as joint scriptwriter, too! As for the Dizzy Reece Quartet: Dizzy discogAnd, wait for it, there was an EP issued on the Tempo label of Nowhere to Go Music:  That picture came off Popsike and the last copy of that auctioned on eBay wasn't quite mint condition, 'only' selling for £156,instead of Record Collector's £175 value, because Tubby Hayes plays on it. For a so-called b-movie, there seems to've been some tyro talents involved all along the road. |
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