GB
1950
1hr 19mins
Dir: Charles Frend
Starring: Stephen Murray and Kay Walsh
A boy steals a powerful magnet from a younger boy, but it gets him into all sorts of trouble
This overlooked Ealing comedy with the fabulous Kay Walsh, was largely filmed on location in Liverpool and there is a good shot of a refurbished Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR) train arriving at an unknown station. However, a ‘Canada’ name board can be seen reflected in the carriage windows. The scene ‘onboard’ the train used a studio set with back-projection, along with a recreated station called ‘Canada’. This is referred to as Canada Dock in the film, which was a real station on the LOR system. Was Canada Dock used for filming? As most stations on the LOR were ‘something Dock’, the ‘Dock’ suffix was usually omitted from timetables to avoid any confusion. From about 1927, when printing was transferred to LNE printers at York, even the tickets omitted dock. It seems likely then that this really is Canada Dock station and that in certain instances, the station name boards too also used the shortened names. A tram can be glimpsed in the background of one Liverpool street scene outside the Liver Building, and an LOR train passes by in the background of another shot. Finally, a couple of four-wheel open wagons are briefly visible in a scene filmed somewhere in the docks. It should be noted that although nothing else railway related appears in the film, there is a picture of a GWR ‘Castle’ Class 4-6-0 on the sea wall at Horse Cove, Dawlish, hanging above the fireplace in the young boy’s house!
