IMPULSE

GB
1954
1hr 20mins
Dir: Cy Enfield
Starring: Arthur Kennedy and Constance Smith

A dissatisfied American realtor living in England gives a lift to a stranded woman and becomes involved in a diamond robbery

This crime drama has some scenes filmed on the Western Region. There is an excellent shot of a passenger train arriving at Taplow station hauled by an ex-GWR 6100 Class ‘Large Prairie’ 2-6-2T, and as the scene cuts to the station forecourt another train is in the station hauled by a tender loco. Later, there is an additional scene filmed at the station and an equally good shot of an express passing along an embankment hauled by a BR Class 7MT ‘Britannia’ 4-6-2. This stock shot would reappear later in Bond of Fear (1956) and Stranger in Town (1957).

A good shot of a train arriving into platform 3 of Taplow station in the hands of a 6100 Class ‘Large Prairie’ 2-6-2T. The loco is too filthy to get the number!!
Outside Taplow now and a train is visible in platform 4 in the hands of an ex-GWR ‘tender loco’.
Arthur Kennedy and Joy Shelton on the platform at Taplow. This is platform 4 and there are some lovely period scenes hanging beneath the canopy.
Platform 3 again, and the train is about to depart
Yet here we have switched sides again to platform 4!! Note the apparently brand new benches awkwardly stacked in the foreground awaiting unloading and positioning.
In a later scene Arthur Kennedy goes back to the station to pick up his wife. This is the upside forecourt of Taplow again. However….
The building behind Joy Shelton is probably a set as the brickwork at Taplow did not feature cream banding like that shown here. Still, this is a highly authentic looking wall leading of course to the possibility that this is somewhere else.
This shot of a ‘Britannia’ Class 4-6-2 on an embankment was also filmed somewhere on the Western Region. The final members of the ‘Britannia’ Class were still being delivered in 1954 and though this one looks far from clean it would still have been relatively new at the time of filming.