THE GHOST CAMERA

GB
1933
1hr 06mins
Dir: Bernard Vorhaus
Starring: John Mills and Ida Lupino

A chemist investigates a murder that was inadvertently caught on camera

This mystery was based on A Mystery Narrative, a short story by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. Despite being made quickly and on a low budget, the film has come to be considered as one of the most successful Quota quickies made during the Thirties. Part of the murder investigation leads to a search for clues adjacent to a railway line and there are some good shots of passing Southern Railway 3 SUB EMUs on headcode Bar over H routes. Headcode Bar over H was South Western Division routes Staines-Windsor (attached or detached Waterloo-Weybridge via Richmond), Virginia Water-Chertsey or Weybridge, Waterloo-Chertsey or Weybridge via Richmond and Waterloo-Effingham or Guildford via Cobham. It is the first of these routes depicted as the scenes were filmed close to the Windsor & Eton Riverside terminus in the Black Potts area.

This road parallels the line on the last half mile or so into Windsor & Eton Riverside station. The vintage 3 SUB EMU passing is ancient history but the level crossing too, on the far right, has also now gone.
Rounding the curve in this shot is another 3 SUB working headcode H Bar, basically Staines-Windsor. Bars and dots were used to distinguish certain services after the Southern Region ran out of letters of the alphabet!!
The train passes as Henry Kendall watches on
With the train safely out of harms way Henry Kendall begins to jog along the four foot. That third rail IS live and it is hard to imagine such an irresponsible act being filmed today.