DR. MORELLE THE CASE OF THE MISSING HEIRESS

Image result for Dr Moreele: The Case of the Missing Heiress 1949

GB
1949
1hr 13mins
Dir: Godfrey Grayson
Starring: Valentine Dyall and Julia Lang

A young woman goes missing under strange circumstances, leaving Dr Morelle to investigate

Adapted from a play by Wilfred Burr this was a film version of the popular BBC Radio series about a doctor-turned-sleuth, and there are some really good railway scenes from the early BR transition period in what is only a cheaply made B-movie mystery. There is a very good and rather rare shot of an ex-GWR ‘Star’ Class 4-6-0 leaving London Paddington and two shots of passing expresses. Both are hauled by ex-GWR ‘Castle’ Class 4-6-0s, one with the stencil headcode ‘180’, and both with early ‘BRITISH RAILWAYS’ branding on the tenders. There is also a lovely panning shot of a GWR-liveried 1400-series 0-4-2T with an auto-coach on the Marlow branch. Early in the film there is an additional, scenic shot of a single track country branch with the exhaust of a distant steam train visible. As it transpires, this shot is part of a longer sequence and appears in the Paul Robeson musical The Proud Valley (1940) where it is revealed that the train is a mineral freight hauled by a GWR 45xx-series 2-6-2T somewhere in South Wales.

This is the scenic shot of a branch line that appears early in the film. The exhaust of an approaching train is quite clear in the centre distance. This shot is taken from a sequence that was filmed for The Proud Valley (1940).
This shot of Bank Holiday crowds at London Paddington has appeared in several other films, most notably The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) and Return to Yesterday (1940) among others.
Passengers board their train on platform 2 at Paddington
A shot which is followed by this rare glimpse of a GWR ‘Star’ Class 4-6-0 about to leave on an express
An express, with stencil headcode ‘180’, passes Maidenhead East signal box hauled by a ‘Castle’ Class 4-6-0.
This second shot of a passing Western Region express is hauled by another ‘Castle’ Class locomotive. The train is different to the shot above as it does not display a headcode, but it is likely filmed at the same location.
This fine shot depicts an auto-train scuttling along a branch line with the ubiquitous 1400 Class 0-4-2T on the front. The train is in fact heading away from Bourne End towards Marlow, and is therefore the famous ‘Marlow Donkey’.