DEATH OF AN ANGEL

GB
1952
1hr 04mins
Dir: Charles Saunders
Starring: Patrick Barr and Jean Lodge

A young doctor moves to a small village to help the resident doctor but quickly gets involved with a curious murder that only he can solve

This crime film features some excellent shots of ex-GWR ‘auto-trains’ arriving and departing from the old Marlow station at the hands of 1400 Class 0-4-2Ts. There is also a sequence of distant shots of an ‘auto-train’ en route along a branch hidden behind the opening credits though this is not thought to depict a train on the Marlow branch. The screenplay for the film was based on the play This is Mary’s Chair by Frank King. Marlow station masquerades as ‘Evenbridge’ in the film, but as an interesting footnote, the nurse in the film played by Jean Lodge is called Nurse Marlow!

The opening credits feature various shots of a branch service formed of an ex-GWR ‘auto-train’ trundling sedately through the countryside. Given the fact that the film features Marlow station it should be the Marlow branch, but the river behind the train in this shot is not the Thames. It is too wide and appears to be estuarine. Cornwall perhaps? Or the Severn?
A typical GWR branch train arrives at the original Marlow station, closed in July 1967. The train is the famed ‘Marlow Donkey’, which shuttled between here and Bourne End.
Raymond Young leaves Marlow station. This is a good shot of the original station building with goods shed beyond.
The ‘auto-train’ is ready for departure in the final scene. It is revealed in other shots to be auto-trailer W38 and though the locomotive on the front is largely blocked from view, it will be a 1400-series 0-4-2T. W38 is now preserved.
The film ends with this lovely shot of Marlow station fllmed from the rear of a departing ‘auto-train’ as it pulls out