TEMPTATION HARBOUR

GB
1947
1hr 40mins
Dir: Lance Comfort
Starring: Robert Newton and Simone Simon

A railway signalman sees the murder of a man and steals his suitcase full of money

This crime drama is the English version of Henri Decoin’s L’Homme de Londres (‘The Man from London’), both of which are based on the 1947 novel Newhaven-Dieppe by Georges Simenon, though the film itself was directly based on Simenon’s novella Affairs of Destiny. Although it is supposed to be representing that at Newhaven, the signal box central to the story was in fact that at Folkestone Harbour, and despite the fact that a signalman and his box are central to the plot, the railway scenes are rather limited. There are a couple of shots of locomotives shunting plus a shot of a train leaving the Harbour station, but the scenes are all filmed at night making identification very difficult, though the locomotives are all likely to be ex-SECR in origin. The dockside scenes were filmed on Folkestone Harbour Pier with some clearer daytime sequences. Railway wagons are visible in a number of these shots along with a large steam crane and a shunting steam locomotive.

In this shot at night a boat is berthed on the left with a steam tank locomotive shunting noisily on the right
All the external shots of the signal box in the film used the box at Folkestone Harbour. It was a box that was built to an interesting design.
The internal scenes used a detailed set. The signalman on duty is played here by Leslie Dwyer and he has his wife for company, played by Kathleen Harrison!
A steam train stands in the platforms of Folkestone Harbour station
In this clearer daytime view of the harbour pier a large steam crane forms the main interest
William Hartnell on the tracks at Folkestone Harbour station
As a body is fished from the water a steam locomotive goes about its business in the background