GB
1949
1hr 24mins
Dir: Henry Cornelius
Starring: Stanley Holloway and Margaret Rutherford
A hidden parchment reveals Pimlico to be a part of Burgundy
This classic Ealing comedy includes a famous sequence whereby Pimlico has become an independent state and London Underground travellers find themselves subject to passport control at the border, which is deep within an Underground tunnel! The establishing shot shows what seems to be a four-car Wimbledon-bound train comprising of two G Stock motor cars either end of a pair of Q38 trailers entering a tunnel at South Kensington. The train interior scene that follows, however, appears to have been shot inside the passenger section of a rebuilt E Stock motor coach, which matches the front end actually seen in the tunnel. While it has been suggested that the interior was shot in a studio mock-up, it seems too detailed for that, and is almost certainly the same motor unit seen in the indisputably real tunnel sequences. Above ground, there are a few scenes where pre-war Southern Railway EMU’s can be seen crossing bridges over Lambeth Road and Hercules Road in Lambeth, and one of these scenes is particularly memorable as food parcels are thrown by passengers to members of the beleaguered state below. Finally, a number of London trams are visible in the scenes filmed on the Kennington Road. Several shots of passing R and Q stock District Line trains at South Kensington never made the completed film, but these out-takes can be found in full on Video 125’s Diesels and Electrics on 35mm DVD.
