GB
1972
55mins
Dir: Michael Powell
Starring: Mark Dightam and Helen Weir
A boy turns yellow after being visited by an alien
This splendidly eccentric family short is another made by the Children’s Film Foundation and there is one surreal scene on the London Underground in which the yellow boy, played by Mark Dightam, sees everything else around him turn yellow, including the train, its driver and the other passenger! The scenes were filmed at the Aldwych branch platform of Holborn station, which masqueraded as both ‘Chalk Farm’ and ‘Hampstead’ stations on the Northern Line, though the entrance to Hampstead is seen in a later shot. A train of 1938-built tube stock was painted yellow especially for the film, though a more standard red one opens the scene, a British Transport Films stock shot of a southbound Bakerloo Line train arriving at Embankment station!