I have always been fascinated by film studio sets and would love to have walked around one but never have. This one below I came across quite by chance from a film I didn’t know at all – but I am now trying to buy the DVD – it sounds good. This is a subject we will come back to time and again on this site as I find more pictures like this – Really good set I am sure you will agree.
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This is a rare Very British comedy from 1951 and stars
Honor Blackman, Roger Livesey, Geoffrey Keen, Vida Hope, Frederick Leister, Richard Burton, John Salew, Colin Gordon.
Brief synopsis of the film:- A group of enterprising smugglers make use of an ancient charter to smuggle brandy into the southern coast of England. When their ship is seized it looks like they are in trouble until the Customs Officers try & find out where the brandy went. Roger Livesey looking very relaxed as he reads and maybe learns his next lines. This does look like a location shot. Much of the filming was done around Romney Marsh in Kent – curiously not far from the village where Adventures in a Hopfield was filmed – see earlier post – and then the studio set was cut into this presumably. Roger Livesey was in many of the really great British films of the forties – A Matter of Life and Death, Colonel Blimp and a favourite of mine ‘I Know Where I’m Going’ co starring Wendy Hiller. All these from the wonderful team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger This was the last film that Richard Burton made in England before he went off to Hollywood. Keep a look out for Arnold Ridley well before Dads Army of course and Colin Gordon a very busy and very good actor. Does anyone remember him doing that brilliant Tax Inspector part in Steptoe and Son ‘Live Now PAYE Later’ when investigating Albert’s tax claim for his wife – who had been dead for many years – he is plied with drink by the old man. He gets well the worse for wear and his acting of this is superb. Actually I think that was the last TV part he played before his death. Colin was in countless Films and on TV and the stage even appearing on Broadway – so a seasoned actor and a very very good one at that. |
Hello, A good film indeed. I just may have a copy – I certainly used to. Let me know if you are still looking for one.
You’ve missed a star from this film – About the only one still living I guess – Honor Blackman. Some filming was done at Rye Harbour as well as New Romney & Rye town.
Also check out The Quiet Woman, also filmed around the same area at the same time (1951) – an excellent film.
Thank You very much Philip. I appreciate your comment and in fact I have since got a copy of the film. The shot of the studio set I particularly liked.
I do not know of the film The Quiet Woman so will have to check it out and acquire it. I am based in Lincolnshire but know the area you talk of – in fact we were there last summer for a week looking round as we do. Loved Scotney Castle as well.
Thanks,
Neil
My late father Deane Wynne, when he was about 25, skippered the actual boat used in the film for location shots and those made at sea. It was a 40ft Dutch herring drifter called Valkyrien and was owned by a friend of his; the two of them fished with her out of Rye and sold their catch door-to-door from a motorcycle & sidecar. Late on in the filming the boat was needed urgently for a planned scene at Brighton and Deane set out alone one evening from Rye Harbour to motor the vessel westward, his friend being unavailable. The weather was rough, and water got into the fuel of the ancient paraffin engine, which failed about half-way there. With strong wind from the west he had no choice but to somehow hoist the enormous lugsail and run back to Rye bay, where he anchored and collapsed, exhausted, to sleep. Unfortumately he had anchored in the tidal zone, and was awoken by the boat crashing down on the hard sand as the tide receded. She was wrecked and he was lucky to survive. The Brighton scene was abandoned. Unlike the studio mockup, Valkyrien had no piano below. The boat’s owner took it all in good part — he had been paid some £800 — probably more than it was worth — for its hire by the film comany.
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