Thursday, July 28, 2005

Every Little Helps

Herewith a few bits and pieces copied from my entries on: www.madcornishprojectionist.co.uk/anthology.php which is really devoted to cinemas, projection boxes and projectionists appearing in films:

A Clockwork Orange - - Lecture Theatre 'E' at Brunel University was used for the 'aversion therapy' scene. The Hortson Languedoc 16mm projection outfit used is now in the museum of the PPT. (Projected Picture Trust at Bletchley Park)
My colleague John Bates still works at Brunel and was the projectionist for that sequence. I have pix of the Hortson in the box at Brunel and being 'handed over' at the PPT - although in the film you only saw the front of it.

I've just sent John out to photograph the locations for 'Hell Drivers' which were all round here. His dad drove a lorry around Pinewood in the 1960s.

A Kind of Loving - - Exteriors of the Walpole, Ealing. The foyer was decorated especially for the shoot. To which can be added night exteriors at Brentford Station

Account Rendered (1957) - - Andrew Ward says 'I may be wrong on this one, but I think the Gaumont/Odeon/Liberty/Himalaya Palace Southall appears as a major location.'

An American Werewolf in London - - Exterior of The Eros Piccadilly. The interiors, however, were shot in the studio.

Blue Lamp - There's that little cinema on the corner of Harrow Road and Amberley Road (the auditorium's still there). The cinema was the Coliseum, 324 Harrow Road, Paddington which had a Seating Capacity of 800. Featrured in the film 'The Blue Lamp', as did the Metropole Theatre, Edgware Road and closed 1956. It is now demolished and site redeveloped. Andrew who gave me this information also says that the website for the movie 'The Blue Lamp' website
www.wickedlady.com/films/wwwboard/messages/1592.html
where various people were trying to locate the actual location, some putting it a far away as Manor Park.

Carry On At Your Convenience - was the 'Carry On' which showed an all-too-obvious double for Barbara Windsor riding off on a motorcycle from the front of the (first) Odeon Uxbridge. This information from www.wheredidtheyfilmthat.co.uk.

Darling - - The Classic Notting Hill Gate appears in the background.

The Comic Strip Presents - - 1980s TV series. One episode filmed in around and on top of (!) the Rembrandt (ABC) Ewell. Several scenes in the box. One character operates the tab control.

The Family Way (1966) - - Hywel Bennett plays a projectionist who marries Hayley Mills and they fail to consummate the marriage, a great scene where he has a punch up with The Chief. Exteriors shot at The Ambassador Slough(close to Pinewood) the lines in the carpark were painted to look good on camera but in real life cars couldn't fit in them. Don't know where the box was filmed, but it wasn't Slough, which had GK 21s with President Arcs.

The Little Ones - - The kids walk across the front and down the side of the Essoldo Shepherds Bush. This building is still there, as an Australian pub and still shows down the side something along the lines of 'continuous performance, all seats 6d and 1/-'

Theatre of Blood - The Hippodrome's (Putney) exteriors and interiors featured in this 1973 comedy/mystery/horror which starred Vincent Price as Edward Lionheart. There are curious judders in continuity as stacks of burning seats in the stalls signal the end of Lionheart's murderous career. Andrew who gave me this information has a personal account from the filming of this: "I was working in Putney at the time the film was in production and walked down Felsham Road one day to find an exterior shoot in progress. Vincent Price's double was 'escaping' across the roof of the 'blazing' theatre with a dummy lady over, and attached to, his shoulder. Price himself was in a comfortable chair onthe pavement elegantly and appreciatively sipping a cup of tea, joining in the applause of the stand-in at the end of the take. I looked at him and thought: 'Hasn't he got big feet !'"

Wish You Were Here - - Tom Bell plays the seedy projectionist at the Dome Worthing. Simplex + Peerless Magnarcs.

Yanks - - The auditorium, and Compton cinema organ of the Davenport, Stockport (see www.joycealldred.org.uk/page8.htm}. Andrew Ward believes that the end titles may credit 'The Three Js Leisure Centre', Gomersal, another venue which burned down shortly after.

WOW, what a mine of information, thanks a lot Andrew, look forward to the Hell Drivers photos, BUT, they must have real streets, or real buildings in them, and one of the actors, country lanes, green fields, trees, hillsides are no good, we can't relate then and now to them.