Eyewitness 1956

[orpheum2]

I was watching t6his film last night Muriel pavlow ,having witnessed the cinema manager being killed in a robbery runs out of the Coronet cinema striaght into the path of a bus on route 534 with a destination of Harrow station.does anyone know what cinema this is and if the building is still standing?

[mariocki]

There was a Coronet in Holloway Road, not sure if that assists?

[christoph404]

Also the famous Coronet at Notting Hill Gate which is still there,not sure about the bus route though.

[tavistock]

I think that is a fictional bus route. The Coronet in Holloway Road is still there and is a Wetherspoons, staff call it God's waiting room..............not that I drink there (that often)

[orpheum2]

I know the Coronet in Holloway road as i eat there before Arsenal home games.It is definately not this as it was originally an ABC.My oracle at the CTA tells me that the name "Coronet" was very rare in the 1950s so it may be a name used for the purposes of the film.Anyone else seen this film?

[Christopher Matheson]

I don't have access to a copy of this film but I took some notes when I saw it some years back. In the scene before the woman gets knocked down you see 'Sherry's Dispensing Chemist' and next door is 'Lewis' a tobacconist. As a woman looks in a shop window at televisions a shop called 'Normans' is on other side of road. At this point a trolleybus passes and something called 'Main Arcade' is visible across street. Opposite the Coronet is a shop which I think was called 'Brewin' and as the woman is knocked down another shop visible is 'Gladwell & Fuller'. And next to Brewin it may be 'Austin Farr' but it was rather fuzzy. Does any of this mean anything to anyone?

[CliveT]

I think the answer is found in South Road, Southall. I've been looking at Youtube and there is a short clip from "Eyewitness', when the woman runs out of the cinema, down a side exit there is a very brief shot of the buildings opposite. If you go onto google earth and look at South Road and Himalaya Cinema location, look at the windows, above the shops, on the opposite side of the Himalaya and compare with the Youtube clip. Obviously, I cannot say it's 100% but......

[orpheum2]

Thanks for that.I have been to the Himalaya,a marvellous cinema,alas not being used as such at the moment.

[tavistock]

Some pictures of the Palace Southall here Palace Southall | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[Christopher Matheson]

CliveT you do indeed have the correct location. The Youtube clip also shows some of the cinema architectural details, which are still intact, as the commissionaire runs to the crash and as Donald Sinden and Nigel Stock walk to their car the buildings on the other side of South Road are pretty much the same today. In my earlier message I mentioned a trolleybus passing, but as there were no such buses on South Road I suppose that scene could have been filmed close by where the 607 passed through Southall.

[doojeen]

Very impressive detective work!