The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Historian and broadcaster Dan Cruickshank goes off the beaten track and revisits the London haunts that author Geoffrey Fletcher wrote about in the 1960s

Might be of interest to some.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sxj2v

There was also a documentary film made in 1967, with James Mason as the tour guide. Worth tracking down.

It was released on DVD last year according to Radio 4.

dazzababes wrote:There was also a documentary film made in 1967, with James Mason as the tour guide. Worth tracking down.

Theres actually a bit of a glasgow connection to this documentary. An actor called Tom Busby who was one of the original "Dirty Dozen" he played the character "Milo Vladek" . Tom was one of the producers of "The London Nobody Knows"

Tom came to Glasgow on an acting job, he had a part in "Heavenly Pursuits" he loved the city so much he stayed.

He retired from acting and took up training young people on film techniques, editing and scriptwriting techniques. he was also the official photgrapher in the Apollo for a while.

I had the pleasure in working with him on some projects before he passed away, and he was full of great stories. That you had to get out out of him after a few malt whiskeys.

He made a video for my band, unfortunatly he died before he had the chance to edit it down to its final form.

He worked with some great people, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Roger Moore etc. and he had the pics(and the movies and Tv series tapes)) to prove it.

His son still lives just off Queen Margaret drive i believe. must've been ace when the teachers in school asked him what his dad did for a living eh!

What a wonderful and informative post, Dicky! Top marks.

HollowHorn wrote:What a wonderful and informative post, Dicky! Top marks.

hear hear and it's left me wanting more
Like what band? and some stories
Ps I know it's the t'internet but you can always PM

Ah, Heavenly Pursuits, a film sadly lacking on DVD, although I think I still have the copy I recorded from Channel 4 about 20 years ago! Who was he in Heavenly Pursuits, do you know?

I've got The London Nobody Knows on DVD, it's paired up with an absolutely bonkers 60s musical short called The Bicycles of Belsize (Well, Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, to use its given title, which is odd given it has bugger all to do with France or French, really!). Worth a watch indeed to see James Mason wandering around derelict old theatres and watching the Jakies drinking yer actual meths.

The most remarkable thing about the film THE LONDON NOBODY KNOWS is how much of that old city is still there, and unchanged after some 42 years or so. (A similar, contemporary THE GLASGOW NOBODY KNOWS would have resulted in a very different story.) The eel and pie shop, which I bet they filmed because they thought it wouldn't last much longer, is still there on Chapel Market. Still exactly the same, as is most of the street itself. Ditto Fournier Street, runing between Spitalfields and Brick Lane. It was a decaying slum when they filmed it, almost begging to be knocked down - but now all the buildings have been restored and it's one of the most "desirable" streets in London. Cardinal Cap Ally which Mason so dolefully appraises is intact too, smack bang in the middle of the major toursit triangle of the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and the wobbily bridge.

Those strange men breaking eggs east of Tower Bridge have been swept away forever though. Probabaly due to Edweena Curry forcing John Gummer's daughter to eat omlets on live television during the potato stikes in 1985. Or something. It's all nowt but posh boutiques down there now.

THE LONDON NOBODY KNOWS as a film really grew from the truly dreadful 1964 mondo movie, LONDON IN RAW.

London In the Raw

Cinematographer Stanley Long, co-producer Michael Klinger, co-directors Norman Cohen and Miller, editor Stephen Cross (and narrator David Gell) clearly saw some mileage from such London type pictures, as they were later involved with making PRIMITIVE LONDON and in 1968 THE LONDON THAT NOBODY KNOWS. Odd that just a couple of years later co-producers Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger would help create two masterpieces, REPULSION and CUL DE SAC, found Tigon and be important players in the horror film world. Long would shoot THE SORCERERS, ending his career working on the dreary ADVENTURES “sex comedies”. Cohen and Klinger would have a similar fate with the CONFESSIONS series. Proof of what odd CV's a life working in the British film industry could generate.

Toby Dammit wrote:The most remarkable thing about the film THE LONDON NOBODY KNOWS is how much of that old city is still there, and unchanged after some 42 years or so.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for one of my favourite films, Smashing Time, filmed in London in 1966.
Many of the scenes were filmed around Gospel Oak/Lismore Circus in Camden, which was actually being flattened and redeveloped while the film was being made.

http://breakfastintheruins.blogspot.com ... -1967.html

I've got Primitive London on my Amazon wishlist, along with quite a lot of the contemporary stuff recently released by the BFI on their Flipside label - although a lot of the places still survive, the businesses and characters perhaps aren't as numerous. Dan Cruickshank recently made a plea that all the various efforts to clean up areas like Soho are utterly robbing them of the atmosphere that made them interesting:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... crusade.do

As for Tigon et al - I've the coffin box set of their stuff released a few years ago on the shelf opposite me as we speak, the British film industry is a less interesting place without a myriad of companies like them.

There's an interesting wee film called Carousella on a very cheap sampler DVD for the BFI's Flipside range - it's two quid in Fopp or from the HMV website. It's a John Irvin directed docu-drama about Soho strippers. Not to mention the documentary about the Paul Raymond empire which is currently being repeated on More 4 I think.

I only wish I were old enough to have experienced these kinds of places first hand - a much older acquaintance than me from Edinburgh was recently lamenting to me too about how Glasgow is the same now, nowhere near as interesting a city as it once was - although he used the word sexy, rather than interesting! I don't think he meant it (entirely) literally!

dazzababes wrote:Unfortunately, the same can't be said for one of my favourite films, Smashing Time, filmed in London in 1966.
Many of the scenes were filmed around Gospel Oak

Was up at Gospel Oak station this very afternoon, dodging the plague of flying ants attacking the city. Havent seen SMASHING TIME for years, so I don't know if it features nearby Little Green Street, a cute, 18th century lane where The Kinks shot their proto-pop video DEAD END STREET.

Talking of London in 1966 and some of the talent involved in THE LONDON NOBODY KNOWS, it's incredible how intact almost all the REPULSION locations are: the pub at the end of Battersea Bridge is still the same one Carol dementedly strolled past roughly half way through the film, the beauty salon she worked in is spookily still a beauty salon. Most remarkable is the fact that Dino's is still Dino's, uttery unchanged inside and out since Polanski filmed Catherine Deneuve eating/hiding there (the majority of exteriors were shot round South Kensington). I've seen documentary footage too of then local resident Francis Bacon strolling past Dino's, marking it out as one of London's prime psychogeographical locations for seekers of haunts of artists of the extreme.

Cinematographer Stanley Long, co-producer Michael Klinger, co-directors Norman Cohen and Miller, editor Stephen Cross (and narrator David Gell) clearly saw some mileage from such London type pictures, as they were later involved with making PRIMITIVE LONDON and in 1968 THE LONDON THAT NOBODY KNOWS. Odd that just a couple of years later co-producers Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger would help create two masterpieces, REPULSION and CUL DE SAC, found Tigon and be important players in the horror film world. Long would shoot THE SORCERERS, ending his career working on the dreary ADVENTURES “sex comedies”. Cohen and Klinger would have a similar fate with the CONFESSIONS series. Proof of what odd CV's a life working in the British film industry could generate.


ADMIN EDIT - Spam links deleted. Don't try it again, as we'll just follow you round getting rid of them anyway.

Maybe not the right thread, but these pics are worth a look.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2012/oct/29/london-hidden-interiors-architecture-pictures#/?picture=398398621&index=16

Aye. Thanks for those, very interesting. The operating theatre looks fascinating, but does not bode well for a pleasant patient experience!

Some great revelations in that Guardian link, I've lived here for 18 years and there were places I'd never heard of. Lovely picture of the Black Friars pub, in reality its rather run down, a lot of the fittings broken with tatty old lamps scattered round in need of a clean.

The Neasdon temple is well worth the trek out to north west London, though the public are not allowed to bring cameras (or mobile phones) inside (they have a security force on the gate). Here's a snap I shot of it in May this year.