GB
1944
1hr 15mins
Dir: John Harlow
Starring: David Farrar and Anne Crawford
A crime reporter begins to investigate the disappearance of his bosses wife who was witness to a murder
This likeable yet fairly routine forties B-movie is based on the 1933 novel Reporter! by Ken Attiwill and it features shots of some rare locomotives. In a scene filmed close to Kew Bridge, a Q1 Class 0-6-0 crosses tender first with what looks to be an engineers train, whilst at the end of the film we are treated to a really good close up stock shot of SR H15 Class 4-6-0 No.476 departing London Waterloo. This is particularly fine, as only 26 H16’s were ever built. This forms the prelude for a studio-bound train journey to “Guildford” with several intercut shots of passing night expresses, one of which looks like a shot taken from Night Mail (1936), and another of which later reappeared in Wide Boy (1952). Amongst the fairly typical views of wheels and motion is a more unusual shot of a fireman at work on the footplate. In the earlier scenes filmed at Strand-on-the-Green there is a distant shot of a District Line train crossing Kew Bridge.
