GB 1964 1hr 05mins Dir: Robert Douglas Starring: Leslie Nielsen and Alizia Gur
A secret agent has to prevent a vital tape from falling into the hands of the enemy
This neat little suspense film with a delightful pink pantherish jazz theme throughout features good scenes at London Victoria station of Night Ferry Wagons-Lits stock with coach No.3792 prominent. Sadly, the motive power of this once glamorous train is not visible. There then follows two badly erroneous shots depicting the train on its way to Dover and the Continent. The first is a stock shot of a passing night express train hauled by an ex-LMS rebuilt ‘Royal Scot’ Class 7P 4-6-0, possibly No.46157 The Royal Artilleryman (a shot which has appeared in five different films overall – see picture below) and the second is a close up three-quarter shot of the cab of an ex-LNER 4-6-0 pulling away from a stand, a clip that also appears in It Happened Here (qv), a film that was released in the same year. Despite these mistakes there is good footage of the train being shunted onto the night ferry itself and Wagons-Lits coach No.3801 can be seen in this sequence. The shot of the LNER locomotive cab and other Night Ferry sequences in this film were in fact taken from the 1956 BTF film Link Span.
Passengers board the Night Ferry at London Victoria’s platform 2. Voiture-Lits roughly translates as ‘Bed Carriage’, practically the same as Wagon-Lits (‘Sleeping-Car’).
The heavy train slowly pulls away and begins its lengthy journey to Bruxelles (Brussels)
And as the camera pans around to follow the train’s progress we get a wonderful glimpse of the Night Ferry illuminated sign. What happened to that?
This at first appears to be a rather dark ‘stock shot’ of not much in particular. It is in fact a shot of a rebuilt ‘Royal Scot’ on an express. This shot first appeared in The Set Up, released in February 1963. Three months later it appeared in Heavens Above!, then five months after that it was seen in From Russia with Love. It then went on to also feature in Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), The Talented Husband – the first episode of The Saint TV series – (also 1965) and then The Thirty Nine Steps (1978), only in reverse!
Link Span Scene One: with precision alignment a deckhand sees that the linkspan drops safely in place to allow the train to be shunted into the hold of the ship.
Link Span Scene Two: the guard of a freight train gives the right away to the driver.
Link Span Scene Three: the driver prepares to move off. The loco is an ex-LNER 4-6-0.
The Night Ferry being propelled gently on to the BR-owned train ferry at Dover. The wording across the top of the carriage reads ‘Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Europeens’ (lit: International Sleeping-Car and Great Europeans Express Company), who are still extant today in the art of luxury European rail travel. This really was an exotic sight on UK soil.
An overall shot of the train ferry with the Night Ferry being propelled aboard.
