The London Traveler

I have to admit I’m the kind of person who really likes to track down little continuity issues when I’m watching films.  It’s a bit nerdy. Well actually it’s very nerdy.
Now when you really know London, you can get very nerdy indeed about precise locations. And that’s great fun. Tony Reeves obviously enjoys this and his book Movie London is full of the most intriguing details about London locations which have been misused in film.
For instance, in The Killing of Sister George, Beryl Reid stomps down a little passageway between Heath Street and Hampstead Grove, in north London. But she …read more

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One of the most amusing things I’ve found in Tony Reeves’ book Movie London is the way London pops up in many films as… somewhere completely different!
Quite often, London becomes Russia. Well, I can see the point of that when in The Music Lovers St Sofia’s Orthodox Cathedral in Bayswater is used as the church where Tchaikovsky’s wedding is held. Appropriately, the cathedral is in Moscow Road! It also figures as a St Petersburg church in the Bond film Goldeneye.
Other Russian locations include Drapers Hall, Throgmorton Street, which becomes St Petersburg in Goldeneye and the Moscow headquarters of Tretiak Oil …read more

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I remember the first time I saw a Derek Jarman film. I’d been brought up on Disney and westerns – here was something brave, rough, colourful and violent, and it opened my eyes to modern film-making.
So I was naturally interested in the Serpentine Gallery’s Derek Jarman exhibition, which includes a new film about Derek by Isaac Julien as well as rare Super-8 footage from Jarman’s private archive. There are also lightboxes showing views of Jarman’s seaside cottage at Dungeness – out of a a remote shack on a shingle beach, Jarman created an eclectic and weird kingdom of his own, …read more

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