GB / FRA
1995
1hr 28mins
Dir: Patrick Dewolf
Starring: Adrian Dunbar and Joanna Lumley
In 1938, a British detective travels to a small French coastal town to investigate the mysterious death of a friend
This dark and somewhat dubious Anglo-French mystery thriller has a good scene at the end that was filmed at Horsted Keynes on the Bluebell Railway, which is standing in on this occasion as a French railway station somewhere on the route to Le Havre. The bulk of this features a very lengthy mixed freight passing slowly through the station at night hauled by Q1 Class 0-6-0 No.33001 (carrying its Continental-style number of C1 at the time). The train consisted of a rake of 23 wagons, one of the longest ever formed on the Bluebell, and certainly the longest created by the preservation movement for a period railway scene on film. The formation of the train featured vans, open wagons, and flat trucks, some loaded with strange shapes covered over with tarpaulin and netting, and others loaded with military vehicles tied down for secure movement. A day time scene was also filmed, with the producers deciding that the night-time ending was more atmospheric than that in the day, especially after heavy rain added to the atmosphere still further. Filming took place over three days and two nights, and the Q1 was in steam for almost the entire period meaning that it really was worked hard. In addition to this, a passenger train briefly calls at the station before the freight passes through, but the locomotive on the front is not identifiable as it is viewed from above. The film had the working title Halcyon Days, but was released as Innocent Lies, and is very loosely based on the 1944 Agatha Christie novel Towards Zero.
