Who Done It?, Runaway Bus and Left Right and Centre

Well, what a pleasant surprise, arrived today in the post three DVDs, Who Done It?, Runaway Bus and Left Right and Centre. Wonderful.

BUT................who sent them? No return address, no name, no note. Thanks a million, but how do I thank you personally. Yes, I know you sent in an email several weeks ago, but of course the object was "hello" or maybe "films" or even "a question". Not much help when I need to say thankyou.

Do put a real object on the object line of the emails, as we do get several hundred of them each day and to trawl through them all takes far too long.

So, to my secret admirer.............thankyou again

John Tunstill

Made in Yorkshire

Dear John,

Tony Earnshaw and I have just discovered your excellent site following a clipping we have just received that was in The Daily Mail.

I am literally about to print up a coffee table book on Friday, in China, called MADE IN YORKSHIRE. I attach details: PDF File

I note with interest three films shot in Yorkshire which have escaped our attention and wonder if it were possible to verify them with you.

The first is John Schlesinger’s film SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY. My wife worked a lot with John and so I knew him well. As I am from Leeds we often talked about BILLY LIAR and YANKS but he never mentioned to me that part of SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY was shot in Doncaster.

Can you please tell me where you sourced this information from?

............our error here, my fault, no mention of Doncaster that I can find in my archive

THE ENTERTAINER. Tony did hear it was shot partly in Bradford but could not find any verification with either the Alhambra or the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. Again I would be grateful if you can help.

.............from Tony Reeves' book, The Worldwide guide to Movie Locations, Titan Books

A TASTE OF HONEY. This is baffling. We did not find anything relating to this film anywhere.

............here our search engine picked up the Bradford connection from Bradford Road Gas Works, Manchester!!

We have an interview with James Mason stating that the very first time he filmed in Yorkshire was the YTV film HOME JAMES. Again in a later interview with the Huddersfield Examiner he says that WATER BABIES was the first feature he filmed in Yorkshire. We found that Night Has Eyes, The aka Terror House was filmed in other parts of the country and not Yorkshire. I would be interested to hear your research on this matter.

I would grateful for any help you may be able to give.

I look forward to hearing from you,

David Nicholas Wilkinson
Chairman
guerilla films ltd.
guerilla books ltd.
www.guerilla-films.com
www.guerilla-books.com

Never Let Go

Hi John

Believe the pic nl010c is the Y junction of the North London Railway at Leyburn Road left into Torbay Street.

Cheers (again)

Roy Barnacle

Well spotted Roy, thanks. How about the curious angle in Leather Boys lb004
/ lb020, one for you to ponder!

John

Pool of London

Greetings John

Re pix POL002c, Pretty sure Bonar Baby could be walking Tooley Street crossing Battle Bridge Road just down from the two buildings split by Hays Lane.

Re Pool of London Pix POL004a - doubt if it is Old Kent Road, New Kent Road, Walworth Road, Camberwell Road as trolleybus wires are shown and I dont think trolleybuses ran down any of those streets. One of the North London termini routes perhaps? Commercial Road etc?

Re Pix POL013. Think it has to be Bankside as that is St Pauls on the other side, whose position would make that Cannon St bridge probably. The (older) London Bridge was stone, not girder.

Re Pix POL024, its probably not a bridge at all but a catwalk jetty or something. Probably further downstream.....wondering if that is the Woolwich Ferry further down??

Cheers Roy Barnacle

Billy Liar

Hello John

It seems we both had our Billy Liar Q&A letters published in the Daily Mail yesterday - I thought you might like a copy of the original unedited piece. Love your site by the way - must join up some time!

Roger Hopkins

To Daily Mail Questions & Answers

Dear Sir

Billy Liar Locations

In my first job as a stills photographer on the movie Far From The Madding Crowd, I was able to talk extensively with director John Schlesinger about the locations he used for his earlier film Billy Liar. Schlesinger clearly loved to talk about the movie, and about the Bradford and Baildon locations in Yorkshire where the film was shot. Since the film's release in 1963, the Billy Liar location trail has become somewhat famous and is actively promoted as a tourist attraction by the Bradford City Council. Furthermore, the superb American Criterion Collection, have released the ultimate special edition DVD of Billy Liar, in which Schlesinger discusses the film in great detail, and writers Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall revisit all the locations. There are many websites about Billy Liar, but the most complete "then & now" record of its locations can be found at the "Reel Streets" website which is dedicated to recording the locations of British made films. The very extensive Billy Liar page is at: http://www.reelstreets.com/public/p_film_page.php?film=billy_liar

Yours sincerely


Roger Hopkins

The Last Days of Dolwyn

Hi!

Now having had a good peruse of your excellent site, I though you might like these two photos.

They are of the location for the images you have for the film The Last Days Of Dolwyn.

This is a film I have not seen - but I would love to know where it can be obtained.

I note from the IMDB that it is about a Welsh valley that was flooded in order to supply water for Liverpool.
The location of the two photos you have on your site is in fact Lake Vyrnwy in what was Montgomeryshire, Mid Wales.
It would appear the the subject matter of the film is based in part on fact - viz the extract below form Wikipaedia:

Lake Vyrnwy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lake Vyrnwy Nature Reserve and Estate (Welsh: Llyn Efyrnwy) ([pronounced [E]VURN-WEE]) is an area of land in Powys, Wales, surrounding the Victorian reservoir of Lake Vyrnwy. Its stone-built dam, built in the 1880s, is the first of its kind in the world. The Nature Reserve and the area around it are jointly managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and Severn Trent Water. It was built for the purpose of supplying Liverpool and Merseyside with fresh water. It flooded the head of the Vyrnwy Valley and submerged the small village of Llanwddyn.

My family came from this area, and I happen to have the attached photos that I took myself in 2007 which almost reflect the same angles.

Best wishes

Graham Hoadly

The Eagle Has Landed

The village church at Mapledurham was a major part of the film and at that time I was the regular organ tuner who visited twice yearly to care for the pipe organ.

I was asked to visit to carry out a tuning just prior to filming and arrived to find the church car park full of little cottages, a new water mill built nearby and an aisle in the church which was never open or used was very much open and obviously going to be used in filming.

This resulted in me being unable to work out the plan of the church when I saw the film as the interior looked nothing like it really is.

I was informed that there was to be filming with loud explosions especially in the churchyard but the organ was safe, however this proved to be incorrect as the resultant explosions blew out a window very close to the organ which brought down lots of flaky dust from the roof into the organ.

This meant a lengthy clean/overhaul after filming costing a lot of money to restore the pipe organ to pristine condition.

The cottage I called at each day to collect the key to the church during my 2 week job of restoring was the cottage where Donald Sutherland had that enormous fight at the end of the film.

Yours Keith Petvin-Scudamore (Retired Master Organ Builder)

It Always Rains on Sundays

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.

Frank Cheevers

Pool of London and The Long Memory

The Pool of London picture: pol010 and The long memory, lm003, use the same doorway at Shad Thames (look at the cracks in the woodwork)....

........Well, I would get out more, but I've got an Anorak and a Kagool. I can never decide which one to put on!

Brother Brian.......

Location Shots

Well, some of you will be rising from your winter hibernation and thinking of holidays.

Take your camera and see if you can find some worthwhile location shots for us. Home and abroad. Simon James has now sent in the pics for Fragment of Fear, Darling and Goodbye Mr Chips, partly filmed in Pompeii and on the island of Capri in Italy. Simon was lucky enough to take an early holiday. Is/was Pompeii a "stately home"? I hear you ask, yes and no, but not as well known as Buck House, HoP, St Pauls etc.

There are dozen more British made films with overseas locations, Omen and St Trinians, both partly shot in Rome, spring to mind, and was it Against the Wind that was made in Belgium?

Various James Bonds, Don't Look Now, Garden of the Finzi Contini, Death in ...., and Pink Panther in Venice and James Bond again in Amsterdam, often the line between British made, or internationally made is blurred. But if the film has British actors, was edited/produced in UK and/or made use of English studio space, then, let's include them all.

Follow me son

Ollie Johnston, the last of the "Nine Old Men" of classic Disney Animators, passed away on Wednesday. Ollie started working with Disney doing in-between work on their animated shorts in 1935, and progressed along with the other eight into their now classic feature films. You can either check out his credit list at imdb.com, or you can just walk over to your shelf and look at every single Disney feature-length animated film you have that was produced before "The Little Mermaid". He worked on all of them.

Several friends of mine, over the years, have told me that when they saw Bambi as a kid and they saw the scene with Bambi's mother and the hunter that they were the only kid in the entire theatre who understood that Bambi's mother was killed by the hunter. Can you guess the man who animated that scene? Yes, it was Ollie (he was also the lead animator for Thumper). I say this not out of vengeance, but of gratitude. For every one of my friends who told me of the heartbreak they felt at the hunter scene in Bambi, not one speaks as if they wished it had never happened, but rather of the new found awareness that the scene taught them. Mr. Johnston, on behalf of myself and my friends, let me say thanks, for allowing us to grow up -- and still watch cartoons.
Jacob Russell

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/04/geekdad-bids-fa.html

........................and it still brings tears to my eyes to remember.

Au Pair Girls

I lived at 83 St Margarets Road for years and I think AP005 is actually taken from within Twickenham Film Studios, showing the studio main gate (which I don't recognise) looking down The Barons. The Barons is a strange layout in an "A shape" - the bit shown is the crossbar of the A I think. I'm sorry i can't give you a picture at the moment because i'm in Yorkshire just now and dont know when i'll be down next.

Hilary Wainwright

Tate Modern Community Film Club

Dear Film Club Member,

Please join us for the next screening as part of the Community Film Club:

Monday April 14, 2008 @ 7:00pm

The 39 Steps (1935)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Synopsis: After a beautiful spy is found dead in his London flat, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) finds himself on the run, handcuffed to the woman who double-crossed him.

Doors open 18.30, programme starts 19.00 (Programme Duration : 86 minutes)

Please use the Turbine Hall entrance and staff will direct you to the Starr Auditorium from there. Free refreshments will be available before the film.

We look forward to seeing you at future film club screenings :

Monday 12 May 2008 - The Piccadilly of South London: An illustrated talk on the History of Entertainment, including the Trocadero in the Elephant & Castle area (90mins) & The Elephant Will Never Forget (11 mins.) Followed by feedback from the audience.

Members are entitled to:
Free entry to all film club screenings
Regular Film Club mailings & programme notes
An opportunity to discuss films over a drink with other local people
Watch films in comfortable cinema surroundings

Please note: If you have completed a membership form, your details will automatically be added to the membership list; you will not receive a membership card or number. This email bulletin is the confirmation of your membership. There is no need to book a place; just turn up on the evening of the screening. If you are coming as part of a large group please let us know in advance by calling 020 7401 5176. If you no longer want to be a member please email: communityfilmclub@tate.org.uk - with 'unsubscribe' as your title.

Community Film Club
Community Initiatives
Tate Modern
Starr Auditorium
Bankside
London
SE1 9TG

Extra interest

The Italians also do appreciate like their locations. (see the book I Luoghi del Cinema pub. Touring Club Italiano)

macchina 1 and 2 is on the Amalfi drive, from a Rossellini effort called La Macchina Ammazzacattivi, i.e. (clumsily) "The Murdering Bad People Machine", made in 1953, or even "the Cars that Kill the Baddies".

qualcosa1 is "Qualcosa di bionde", "Something Blonde", with Sophia Loren and Daniel J Travanti, made in 1984 and shot (to their pride) at the Excelsior Vittoria, Sorrento. It was released as Aurora later. Could also be "A Blonde Something". And, apropos to nothing, blond/blonde is probably the only English word that changes its spelling according to its sex. For more confusions of the English tongue, see www.tunstillsdislexicon.com.

Neither film is British made, but of interest, certainly if we go down the Roman Holiday route (I fancy a few days in Rome anyway. Simon). Village of Daughters was British made with all the usual suspects in the cast, and with an Italian background. The Italian Job is waiting to be loaded and Checkpoint is already on-line.

Simon James

Film Locations

Well, at last, historical film locations, "cinematographic archeology", becoming "mainstream"!

This week in the Daily Mail, a query about the locations for "Billy Liar", and on sunday in the Daily Express, an article on the "Third Man".

If you want to offer an article to your local paper about film locations, nostalgia and reminiscences for your area, we have a selection of "articles" prepared, and you only need to strip in the local details.

If you're interested, let us know, and your name too can be "in lights" in your local newspaper.

Carry On again Doctor

The property in picture coad001a is Iver Grove, Iver, Buckinghamshire, which I visited a few years ago when it was the home of Dr Miriam Stoppard.

John Vigar