Wilfried Mueller

What is your favourite so called "typical british" film which has been filmed/produced in another country?
My absolute favourite is WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION with marvellous Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich in her best role.

Wilfried Mueller, Germany

Bobj

I can't say its my favourite but one film I'm rather partial to is 'Twenty Three Paces to Baker Street' (1956) with Van Johnson, Vera Miles and Cecil Parker. It's about a blind playwright who overhears a murder plot in a pub. It's great fun with a good plot,lots of cockney types and red buses despite what Halliwells Film Guide describes as "a weird idea of London's geography: the hero's apartment has a balcony overlooking the Thames two miles away"

Steve Crook

There are quite a few that get London geography hopelessly wrong. But that's probably the same of other cities as well, every building in Paris looks out over the Eiffel Tower :)

But as London is spread out so much it's more noticible.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

jake29179

My favourite is Juno and the paycock even though it was i think made in britain it was based on a play depicting life in tenement slums in dublin during the Irish civil war.

Juno and the paycock was written by Sean O`Casey (not stephen casey.

Paul E

[quote]Originally posted by Wilfried Mueller:
[QB] What is your favourite so called "typical british" film which has been filmed/produced in another country?

Obviously Hitch was still making 'British' films in his transitional years in Hollywood. 'Suspicion' and 'Rebecca' are prime examples. Cukor's 'Gaslight' also springs to mind, as does the US version of The Lodger.

Marky B

I remember an episode of Murder She Wrote late last year,in which Jessica Fletcher's cousin solved a murder in jolly old England. Token shots of the English countryside were taken,without the actors actually appearing,but the film was clearly made in the USA. The Rolls Royce had white tyres,a coffin was the sort used in the USA and the mainly British cast were mainly ex-pats living in the USA:Richard Johnson,Jane Leeves,Anthony Newley etc. Quite often they use that old duffer (who played the drunken RAF pilot in The Mummy) to prop up the Englishness (he appeared in an episode of Columbo when the detective came to London).
I also remember one of the sequels of the Dirty Dozen was supposedly set in Liverpool - it was actually filmed in Yugoslavia,an boy did it look it.
A parting shot:The scene in The Hunt for the Red October,where a Kremlin official receives a letter from the Soviet Submarine Captain - Big Tam - announcing his intentions to defect,was actually filmed in Liverpool.
Ta Ta
Marky B thumbs_u

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

TheLurkerKIng

That old duffer mentioned by the previous poster is Bernard Fox. Perhaps, best known for playing Doctor Bombay on the American television series "Bewitched."

Marky B

Thanks,Lurker King
Ta Ta
Marky B thumbs_u

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

MrDrakesDuck

I remember an episode of Ironside like that and to try and convince it was England they showed a shot of an blindingly obvious American house with a British Bobby cycling past.

"I thought I had to shoot Germans, not chew 'em"

DAVID RAYNER

I remember the opening scenes of The Lost World (1960) were set at "London Airport", but were obviously filmed at some small aerodrome in Los Angeles, complete with American style left hand drive buses; a departure gate the size of a small garden shed and, just to give American moviegoers the idea of where the scene was supposed to be set, the words "LONDON AIRPORT" painted in big white capital letters on a grassy bank. The Americans, of, course, in general having very little knowledge of what foreign locales look like, would not have known any different. But even as far back as 1960, Gatwick or Heathrow airports never looked like this.

Steve Crook

Maybe someone on the production team had been to Heathrow Airport in the 1940s when there was little more than a tent in a field and they thought that it must be a bit more modern than that now - but didn't realise how fast it grew into a small town in its own right.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Bobj

To elaborate on the points made by Marky B and Mr Drakes Duck I used to love the way that the American detectives of the 70s and 80s used to make trips to England causing havoc in the process. A subject which was of course examined more fully in the movie 'Brannigan' with John Wayne.
In 1972 Columbo showed up in London to learn about British police methods. Stalwarts Wilfrid Hyde-White, Bernard Fox and John Williams were wheeled out to assist in an episode entitled 'Dagger of the Mind'
Also in 1972 it was Richard Widmark's turn as Madigan in 'The London Beat' assisted by a hapless George Cole.
Marshall Sam McCloud turned up twice in 'London Bridges' (1977) and 'The Return of Sam McCloud' where his British police contact Inspector Craig was played by Adam Faith and David McCallum respectively.
Rock Hudson & Susan Saint James as McMillan & Wife chose not to go to London but to visit relative Jamie McMillan (Roddy MacDowall) in Bonny Scotland in 'Death of a Monster, Birth of a Legend' (1973).
Finally did you know Jonathan & Jennifer Hart of Hart To Hart fame actually met and fell in love in London! We discover this in the episode 'Two Harts are Better than One'(1983) featuring David Warner & Ron Moody. But the Harts were frequent visitors to good old England. In 'Million Dollar Harts' (1982) they encounter Simon MacCorkindale, Bernard Fox and Jeremy Kemp. Whilst in 'Harts & Hounds'(1983) they investigate a murder at a fox hunt. Queue an appearance by Gordon Jackson.
Love to hear more of these I'm sure every long running series made at least one excursion to Britain.

Steve Crook

Or at least to an area just outside Hollywood that they could make to look a little bit like Britain and then use some of the British actors resident in Hollywood.

I'm sure quite a lot did really come here, but a lot also faked it.

But "Duke" Wayne really did come here to film Brannigan. There is a nice punch-up in The Lamb Tavern in Leadenhall Market in the City of London.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Marky B

Perhaps a mention should be made to The Elephant Man. Although with a total British cast,except Anne Bancroft,it was an American film,financed by Mel Brooks and directed by the avante garde David Lynch.
An excellent film,ignored for their worthy glory by the Oscars and not shy of showing the squalor of the Victorian era. For an American film,it avoided the cliches and all the cast deserved a mentioning. If Mel Brooks ever deserved an Oscar for Best Film,this was the one.
Ta Ta
Marky B thumbs_u

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

DB7

To quote Austin Powers: You know what's remarkable? That England looks in no way like Southern California.