TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

GB / FRA/ GER
2011
2hrs 07mins
Dir: Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman and Colin Firth

In 1970s London, a deadly hunt takes place for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service

This Cold War espionage film is based on John le Carré’s 1974 novel of the same name. There is not much worth reporting, either about the film or it’s so called railway scenes, neither of which quite add up to the total sum of their parts. When Gary Oldman buys a train ticket to Oxford the ticket window is not at a railway station at all but is instead a mock up inside the Grand Hall at Olympia on the Hammersmith Road. The shot of a railway bridge with St Paul’s Cathedral behind is in part a recreation. The bridge carries the railway between Kentish Town West and Gospel Oak across Wilkin Street in NW5 (note the overhead wires) but the dome of St Paul’s is a CGI addition as is the ‘European’ style railway carriage that is seen crossing! The only real shot is a randomly obscure one of a pair of EMU’s weaving their way across point work. Judging by the roof lines these appear to be a Class 455 (on the left) with a Class 442 on the right. Not a scene from the 1970s at all.

This road bridge carries the North London line across Wilkin Street and the wires for the overhead electrification can be seen. However, St. Pauls Cathedral is a CGI addition as are the railway carriages crossing, which are more at home on mainland Europe than in the UK!!
The only real railway shot in the film is downright obscure. A pair of electric units run alongside each other, a Class 455 on the left and a Class 442 ‘Wessex Electric’ on the right. Presumably this is the track work outside Waterloo but if the previous picture is anything to go by then this too could be ‘manipulated’ by the computer. After all, those ground signals look distinctly odd.