GB
1968
1hr 48mins
Dir: Michael Sarne
Starring: Geneviève Waïte and Donald Sutherland
A provincial girl is entangled in the mod morality of London
This musical drama is a rather whimsical look at 60’s swinging London but it isn’t at all clear at times what it is trying to portray. The opening scenes were filmed in black and white at London Paddington. There are random shots of various parts of the station, the comings and goings of passengers are viewed, and the people at work are glimpsed which, combined with a smooth jazz score over the top, gives one the impression that the production team where making an attempt at recreating the moody shots of Waterloo in John Schlesinger’s 1961 classic Terminus. They may have failed in this attempt, but it is an interesting parody and still a fine opening sequence. During all this, Geneviève Waïte arrives on a train hauled by a Class 52 ‘Western’ and diesel-hydraulics abound in these shots. There is a clear glimpse of a Class 35 ‘Hymek’ ‘on the blocks’ with a Class 22 diesel-hydraulic visible alongside, and a DMU in one scene looks like it maybe a Class 119, a rare type to have been captured. The Class 22 is an even rarer machine to find in a feature film, there not being much footage of these relatively short-lived locomotives. The film’s ending features a big song-and dance-performance on the platforms of Paddington, now in full colour and with plenty of Mk1 coaches present. Another Class 52 ‘Western’ is just visible in the background, whilst the scene ends with an extreme close-up shot of a Mk.1 being propelled into the platform. Then the credits roll.
