THREE HATS FOR LISA

GB
1965
1hr 39mins
Dir: Sidney Hayers
Starring: Joe Brown and Una Stubbs

Three young Cockneys take a day off work to meet an Italian movie star at Heathrow Airport

This easy-going musical comedy features railways in the background of several shots, though apart from one solitary four-wheel oil tank no trains are seen. The sequence filmed in the sidings ‘owned’ by the Port of London Authority actually used the Slough Trading Estate, whilst there is an additional shot filmed outside the old West London Air Terminal in Kensington. In the cutting below, the tracks of London Transport’s District Line can be seen passing at the back of the buildings on Cromwell Road. Finally, there is a brief shot of the entrance to what appears to be Holborn Underground station. The lead role in the film is played by rock and roll singer and musical entertainer Joe Brown, who was in fact a BR steam locomotive fireman at Plaistow in the late-1950s. He left the job because ‘the smell of the diesels drove me out when they took over from steam’.

The blue sign on No.3 Gate reads ‘Port of London Authority’. This is all a prop that aims to cause confusion for this is in fact an entrance to the Slough Trading Estate off Buckingham Avenue.
A brief glimpse of some of the estate sidings including some rather intricate pointwork
The only item of rolling stock to appear in this film is this rather lonely 4-wheel oil tank that looks to have been abandoned judging by the grass on which it stands!
I think this is the entrance to Holborn Underground station but I stand to be corrected
The tracks of London Underground’s District line can be seen curving through the cutting between Cromwell Road and the West London Air Terminal in Kensington