GB
1935
1hr 04mins
Dir: Reginald Denham
Starring: Roger Livesey and Lilian Oldland
Having being swept off her feet after moving to London, a young woman struggles with love and money
This fine comedy drama features a good number of railway scenes, as well as a rather interesting model. The first shot is a wonderfully crisp view of LNER N7/2 Class 0-6-2T No.2656 arriving into Smallford for Colney Heath station with a train composed of three six-wheelers. The locomotive has a KING’S CROSS destination board on its bunker and went on to appear in Dead Men Are Dangerous four years later in 1939. The carriage is a studio mock-up using back-projection but the departure scene appears to show a real station through the open door. There is then a stock shot of SR ‘Lord Nelson’ Class 4-6-0 No.859 Lord Hood passing through the centre roads of an unknown Southern Railway station. This shot also turns up in Carry On Sergeant (1958) and The Whisperers 1967 (qv). Later on there is a scene filmed outside Smallford station in which the rear of a departing train can be glimpsed. The view of wheels and motion uses a live steam model, probably a Bassett-Lowke, but what is interesting here is that the loco is named Sir Felix Pole, a man who was general manager of the Great Western Railway from 1921 to 1929 before leaving the industry and becoming executive chairman of Associated Electrical Industries. A former GWR ‘Castle’ was named after him in 1956, but no actual locomotive ever carried the name prior to this date. My question, therefore, is which loco does the model represent, and why was it named Sir Felix Pole when no locomotive was carrying the name at the time? A mystery that will likely never be solved…….
