I'm sure that an adult film set on an abandoned section of overground underground is measurably cleaner than the armrests on the Northern Line at rush hour anyway.
So it's no worse than getting on the last train on the Northern or Central Line at Tottenham Court Road after a night out in the 90s/00s. The level of soft porn and folk being unable to take their hands of each other did often reveal various parts of the male and female anatomy....
I always thought it was a very odd choice for Star Wars to shoot on the Canary Wharf platforms. It was hardly a long or pivotal scene in the movie, and it wasn’t even standing in for a subway station or any kind of space equivalent. They had to do so much set dressing (probably augmented with post-production touching up) that it can’t have been significantly cheaper or quicker than just building a whole set, especially allowing for the logistics of filming in what’s usually a very busy station. And despite that, it’s still recognisable enough to anyone who’s been there that it stands out from the typical studio sets that make up the rest of the sequence.
@@SDCentralTSVIt came about in response to the Morbius movie's terrible ratings and was originally a sort of joke about sarcastic movie ratings acting like it was brilliant; "My favourite part was when Dr Morbius says "it's morbin time" and morbs everywhere, truly one of the films of all time" Admittedly, that's all I know about Morbius.
I worked for LT for a spell in the late 1990's, largely in the Facilities & Infrastructure group. LT hired out Aldwych at 1200 pounds per hour, with an 8-hour minimum, for the station and platform - or 1600 per hour if you needed the train to move in and out of the station. Other LT buildings were around 400 per hour, except 55 Broadway which cost 600 per hour - all with an 8-hour minimum.
Well that gives the idea of costs then for V for Vendetta, not only just platform filming, but the Explosive loaded train leaving the platform. (Aldwych).
@@garethaethwy close a line that’s already closed? as for the pure profit: any money made from usage beyond what is paid to the power company for the lighting is pure profit- a small amount of money that is recovered in minutes from the rental fees
In Paris we have a station dedicated for movie-making. It's the not used half of Porte des Lilas station (11 - 3bis lines). The station nameplates are made to be interchangeable, allowing the station to be dressed-up as any other one of the network. The tracks are fully functional (it's on a branch used for rolling stock movements between lines) and trains can be provided by the RATP (who runs Paris metro) or volunteers of a museum for older rolling stock. Trivia : line 3bis of Paris Metro is ridiculously short, being 1km shorter than W&C line, but has 4 stations.
Passport to Pimlico (1949) features a District Line Q stock train (the Pimlico border control officers descend into the tunnel to stop the train). Interior footage was shot in a real train, but exterior shots used a mockup of a Q23 stock car and tunnel. Most location footage was actually filmed on a WW2 bomb site in Lambeth, across the river from Pimlico, but coincidentally Pimlico Plumbers' main offices now occupy the site.
Sliding Doors is a fantastic film (my all time favourite). It REALLY gets you thinking about how 'little moments' (like catching a train or missing it) have conspired to change your life (whether you know it or not).
I couldn't get past the fact that she gets on a Waterloo and City Line train, and gets off at a Hammersmith and City Line station, although I can't remember which one.
I thought ultimately it made no difference as the ending was the same no matter whether she caught the train or not but it has been some years since I have seen it
Fun fact: the 2003 movie Control (not to be confused with the Ian Curtis biopic) was shot almost entirely on the metro lines of Budapest. They used the after midnight downtime for shooting. It even has an awkward intro speech from the then CEO of the Transport Company of Budapest.
_Control_ is a great film. It's about a group of ticket inspectors on the Budapest metro, and contains comedy and drama and action and romance and may or may not go supernatural at the end.
I was a student at King's from 1978-81. I did once catch the tube to Aldwych just to see what it was like. It took a lot longer than walking as you point out in the video. At that time the second platform was being used by the King's gun club as a shooting gallery!
It was handy if you wanted to go beyond Holborn though, as the interchange was easy. Also reduced, albeit slightly, the number of people using the escalators at Holborn.
Wow, what a coincidence! Right after I had watched your previous video about the Waterloo & City Line, I watched a movie called "The Union" that was released on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. And your next video is about film locations on the Underground. There's a scene in this movie which is supposed to take place at Queensway tube station (per the roundel signs). However, I could clearly see the Network SouthEast stripes underneath the yellow line. Obviously one of the two Waterloo & City stations. I figured they were able to film there, because the line is closed on weekends. The train was even correct, since the same train stock was seen in the movie as would pass through Queensway.
As an ex-denizen of London, I urge people to appreciate the excellence of the Underground. There are no other systems in Europe able to carry so many people so quickly to so many places, and if there certainly are in Asia, which are additionally airier and quieter, that's because they are all over 100 years younger.
Have we officially expelled Moscow from Europe to Asia, now? It has 514.5 km of track versus London's 402 km, 15 lines versus 11, and 2,288.5 million journeys per year versus 1.181 million. Admittedly I don't think the London figures include the Liz Line or the East London Line, but then Moscow also has things not included in the Metro figures. Perhaps you are right, though. From what I've seen of it, the Moscow Metro fits your description of Asian systems pretty well. Also, after the way that we've been treating them, the Russians seem ready to give up their love affair with Europe, and to see themselves more as part of the civilised East.
+1 for Moscow or St Petersburg systems. Being newer and built largely by German POWs they are not like mouse hole tube trains from Victorian times. Moscow metro in particular is far better.
@@kgbgb3663 Gosh, those are very impressive figures, but I don't think that many Europeans get to Moscow so frequently nowadays. I was thinking of Paris and Berlin, both of which I know well. Here in Munich, the Underground arrives every ten (!) minutes, which means that for a journey with one change, you can be standing around on platforms (in the city centre!) for 20 minutes.
@@kgbgb3663 Considering that Russians are mostly Slav's, I would still consider them Russian. Otherwise most of Eastern Europe would be classified as Asian. And regardless; I believe the Paris Metro is busier than the Tube these days, especially when you throw the RER into the mix.
Aldwych was used for the prodigy firestarter. Although it was not the orignal plan, the orignal video was not very good and cost a lot of the budget. Walter Stern was contacted (previously produced other videos for the prodigy) and suggested aldwych but they had limited budget so it was shot in black and white.
I was desperately waiting for An American Werewolf in London to be mentioned. Thank you Jago for not disappointing. In the final scene of that "confrontation" you can see a ceiling hanging clock with the time reading 13.01, despite the action taking place at nighttime in the movie. I have always thought it was a small visual error caused because it had been filmed on a Sunday and I assumed that Tottenham Court Road was a station that used to be closed on a Sunday back in those days. The film was released in 1981. Luckily for many, I don't have cause to use Tottenham Court Road very often because it has been known for me to quote the victims dialogue from the platform to the escalators. I wrote it has been known, what I should have said is every time, without fail.
I too was waiting for a mention of that classic comedy/horror. I must admit that I would have liked to have heard more about it, perhaps even show a clip. As for the clock, in the movie's world perhaps it was faulty ? 🙂
Granted not underground featured but another area also used for “ American Warewolf In London “ was Redcliffe Gardens ( Nearest Station Earl’s Court) , I was in a relationship with a female who’s family home was affected by the filming at Redcliffe Gardens . Back to Paddington the Film lots of the filming was on Paddington Station and during filming on Platform 1 one rush hour a former colleague who worked for FGW forgot about the filming and one evening when everything was going wrong on the network out of Paddington he shot out of a door ( what staff use to / from the mess room 99% of the time ) forgot about the filming and ended right in the middle of the scene being filmed much to the annoyance of the director & producers etc of the film .
I made a comment a while back asking for a video about this after Jago mention filming at the awesome Canary Wharf station, expressly mentioning American Werewolf In London scene, an altimeter classic favourite of mine. If I have time I always try to detour through Tottenham Court. My other two favourite scenes are; the silhouetted policemen’s helmets wandering around the cinema with the dodgy film, presumably filmed at Ongar 😜 and the awesome multi vehicle crash outside!! A brilliant film along with Hot Fuzz!!
Luckily for you (and despite my disabilities and not being able to do certain things like many others can) I did a special on my blog covering Tottenham Court Road/American Werewolf - it was published just two days ago - the entire movie clip from the film - showing all the locations as they were in 1981 and as they are now (or was a week ago when I took pictures around the station for the feature.)
Looking forward to the Aldwych video. Pleased to say I used the station circa 1990 ± whilst it was still open. Took my Dad along. We were the only ones in the lift. And almost the only people on the platform...memories
I pride myself that the one time I used Aldwych station was for bona fide travelling purposes. It was before I moved to London and knew the geographical pointlessness of the branch. Unlike the one time I visited Ongar station just before the line’s closure when pretty much everyone was just along for the ride.
"Sliding doors" is a clever little film. The narrative separates early on into two storylines, depending on whether Gwyneth Paltrow's character makes it onto the tube train in the scene we see here or not. The same characters end up in very different scenarios following the two possible outcomes of that moment in time. I won't spoil the ending, but the diverging storylines sort of come together again. Mind you, when the characters leave the W&C tube train, they emerge from Embankment station. Can't have everything, I suppose.
Sliding Doors is very much worth a watch. Also you can see the interior of a class 487 on the Waterloo and City line in a episode of Dempsey and Makepeace (yeah sorry that was a while back)
Dempsey & Makepeace celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, and is currently being shown on one the minor UK TV channels on weekday afternoons. Lots of Escort XR3 action!
There’s a film from the 70s called Deathline which is a horror movie about a canibal who lives in the London Underground. It was one of the films that used Aldwych as the location for the underground stations.
The above ground setting was around Russell Square, where the hero lives with his girlfriend, who goes missing on the Underground. It's been a while since I've since Deathline but I do remember Russell Square station featuring, although IMDB (sometimes accurate, sometimes not), while acknowledging Aldywych was used, says the Tube action takes place at a station called 'Museum'. It also notes in the goofs section that in one shot a sign directing passengers to the District Line is clearly seen.
Still a great movie, though. Donald Pleasence is superb in it, as a 'seen it all' copper. His parting remark to Christopher Lee's smarmy Civil Servant, which you see, but do not hear, is very funny. 👍👍👍
A couple of extra notes on "Thor- The Dark World" * There is the amusing bit with Thor in full battle armour boarding the tube and no-one batting an eye, which seems Very London to me. * He gets off the tube in Greenwich Town. Which isn't on the tube. So instead he alights at Greenwich Park's underground toilet with a tube emblem mounted above it. That nearly made me laugh in the cinema when I noticed.. 😜 Keep up the good work!
5:20 They definitely recorded something similar there last summer as well. The station was still open but with filming in parts, but now I forget what it was for
My paternal grandparents lived in Chipping Ongar, where the station is. In the 1980's, various council employees went on strike due to pay issues, and, for several weeks, the library had to close. This led to the single greatest headline in a local paper, namely; 'BOOK LACK IN ONGAR'.
5:53 - the last time we were in London we went to dinner at the Supperclub in the tube carriage at Walthamstow Pumphouse and the evening we were there there was a group there filming something in the carriage not used for dining.
Yes please to the Aldwych episode. I spent a good deal of my life watching and waiting to see what was going to happen to Aldwych. And, in the end, nothing happened at all!
As I have said before, St John's Wood was featured in the video for "Bedsitter" by Soft Cell...That Dr Who story from the late 60s scared the life out of me, when my Uncle took me to London, at the age of 8...but these days a Yeti on the Underground probably wouldn't look out of place!
I like to imagine that Grandma is still living in Edgware and that Mum took my brother and I to see "Mary Poppins" at the Burnt Oak Odeon, on a wood trimmed 1938 stock train. 😄
@@marksimons8861 I remember being on one in '87 or '88, I can't remember what line it was on. I was kind of cool in a weird way. No idea why it was in use - emergency spare or so it could be filmed somewhere.
I requested this after a comment in one of your previous ‘video’s’ and am pleased you did it. Thank you! Next time I watch a movie featuring an underground I will watch a little more closely. The TV series Lovejoy was filmed locally and it always fascinated me that the et would use one side of Long Melford high street and splice in a different village for the other side. Presumably lighting?
it might be worth doing a video on the appearance of the underground in video games. there are a few examples off the top of my head. Tomb Raider 3, Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3, Hellgate London, The Getaway Black Monday, The Order 1886... I am sure there are more. Plus the multitude of railway simulators, the recent Fallout London mod, and the capability to recreate the tube in games like Cities Skylines or Minecraft
@@davidbull7210 also notable for being the very first serial to make use of significant location filming (there had been a tiny bit in the Reign of Terror, but otherwise it had been an entirely studio recorded series up to that point)
Hmmm.... to me the pattern of the Leslie Green tiles on the Superman-snippet at 2:11 looks very much like the shuttle platform (platform 5) at Holborn.
I can recommend the London Transport Museum tour of Charing Cross - they even show you a clip of 'Skyfall' which was filmed there. And Jago, I can recommend 'Sliding Doors'!
Hooray! Been wanting this one for years, and so pleased the Web of Fear fact got in. Between this and AI you're on a roll. (If I'm ever earning consistently I'll get round to sponsoring and become a silver chirping ball to your Great Intelligence...
So that's me disabused of the notion that some fondly remembered episodes of doctor Who were actually filmed on an unused part of the tube. Looking forward to the history of Aldwych station to correct/confirm the tales I was told regarding it's history. I used it regularly in the early 1980's and found it very useful when transporting gas cylinders and lead bricks to Holborn.
You and London Transport both. As Jago says, the set was so convincing (unusual for Dr Who in that era, where they famously used to wobble) that LT tried to prosecuteb the BBC for trespass.
When you mentioned the Epping Ongar railway i knew exactly what you were going to talk about, i remember recognising the station in said video and then the ensuing news articles
i think the Aldwych branch is still connected to the main piccadilly line and still signalled partially so that if needed trains can still be brought in and out of the station
Neverwhere, now that sparked some memories! Didn't they also use the underground mail train system in that as well? As it happens I have recently been getting into the Sweeneyalogy channel here (I think I spelled that correctly!), which looks at the filming locations from episodes of The Sweeney, which had a couple of scenes on the surface tube lines.
Summer Holiday is filmed initially in the (now demolished) huge bus garage, which was so big to handle the extra long Tube trains, end to end, that could be picked up in one go, not split (the site is so long that one end was Elstree Hill South Station, and the other Bushey Heath Station!) It was the longest such building in the world. Sadly, despite the tunnels being dug (until recently you could still see the portals), bridges built, etc the project, almost finished, was abandoned, and the Tube works abandoned, and, used for buses (hence the busmen converting a bus for their summer holiday). It did though have a part in WWII where it was used to build parts of Halifax bombers (apparently their seats used London Transport cloth!). The extra long trains were the expresses Jago mentioned a while back.
I was actually working on a drama series last autumn that used the locations you outlined at Bank, Charing Cross and Aldwych (which is a nightmare to get down with heavy gear by the way because the lift isn’t operational anymore). We also used the District line at Kensington Olympia (which they occasionally facilitate) and Stockwell. If a film wants to use a specific live station, they have to do a very short night shoot when the station is closed, and they can’t have trains.
Another London-based underground film location appears at the start of 2016 classic, Now You See Me 2. There's a piece set at an obscure entrance to the New York subway, and for that they decided to film the Greenwich foot tunnel. (I assume the scene later in the film set next to the Cutty Sark made the logistics simpler)
The video Firestarter by The Prodigy was filmed in the tunnels and lift shaft of Aldwych Station. The track is still covered to this day in exploding metallic paper which never made the final cut of the video.
This has actually happened in reverse aswell, meaning that another system was used to masquerade as the Underground. For the Seconds to Distaster episode covering the Kings Cross fire they used Monument and St James on the Tyne & Wear Metro. Both stations had all trace of Metro branding covered up with LU branding where filming took place along with Monument being temporarily renamed Kings Cross. And for the wooden escalator shots they used the ones off the Pedestrian Tunnel of the Tyne Tunnels.
Morden was used in Poirots Hickory Hickory Dock, and Arnos Grove appeared in Poirots Wasps Nest. Blake's 7 episode Ultraworld featured tunnels that were meant to be the inside of a spacecraft. Your welcome.
Yeah, funny coincidence, saw a clip from Ultraworld just yesterday and noticed they were running around in what looked like London underground tunnels. Apparently it's the Camden Town deep level shelter. The Dr. Who story The Sunmakers also filmed down there, a couple of years earlier.
Also I believe either Charing cross or Aldwych was used in 28 weeks later as and in 28 days later they used canary wharf station also I belive they walked along Docklands light rail track as well
Canary Wharf Jubilee line was a must visit place for me when I was in the UK in 2023 with its Star Wars connection. The Andor series (a prequel with a character from Rogue One) also used filming locations in Canary Wharf, the Barbican and Brunswick Centre.
one of my favourite examples of railways (not necessarily the tube, but just railways in general) being used in media was the Nene Valley Railway being used as the location for the music video of Queen's song Breakthru
This is really obscure, but film enthusiasts may recognise the name of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. An early film of his titled Calamari Union (1985) features a journey on the then very recently opened Helsinki Metro, filmed at night when the line was closed. The journey is supposed to feel really long for plot reasons, but it sort of ruins the effect that the train runs through the same station three times. 🙂
Hi Jago :) i have recently (as in last week) been to London and made use of some of the Underground. Namely Circle, Metropolitan, Bakerloo, Victoria , Piccadilly and Elizabeth. Not like end to end ofc, we went sightseeing not breaking records of travel ;) but it was mostly familiar thanks to your (and Geoff's) vids :) and for that i am thankful. One nitpick i would have, the UA-cam vids don't really convey the noise the carriages really make (and they can be pretty noisy next to a second to last carriage tail end door on the older stock). One would hope the tubetubers would some day... crank the noise levels up to represent this:) but i also understand why you don't. Stansted express was real glide as was Elizabeth 😊 Cheers and good week to you 😊
Another use of the Tube was in the 'Adam Adamant' TV series back in the early or mid-1960s. I remember one scene with a Tube train pulling in full of skeletons!
I'm sure that an adult film set on an abandoned section of overground underground is measurably cleaner than the armrests on the Northern Line at rush hour anyway.
It was
I saw the film in question and found it rather tame... Though some nice MK1 and MK2 action
@@Trek001 Were there fluffers?
@@stephenlee5929 None
So it's no worse than getting on the last train on the Northern or Central Line at Tottenham Court Road after a night out in the 90s/00s.
The level of soft porn and folk being unable to take their hands of each other did often reveal various parts of the male and female anatomy....
or just the seats. they are not pleasant places to be.
"...even if the moody lighting means it's a little on the dark side". Jago Gold.
Quatermaster and the Pit.?
@user-xh3lz9xt4l That was definitely based in a tube location.
@@stephendavies6949 yes I thought it was Hounslow or another one of the stations in the area.
@@MichaelCampin- LOL! I think you mean QUATERMASS a the pit. Set in the fictional ‘Hobbs End’ station, which was a studio set.
I always thought it was a very odd choice for Star Wars to shoot on the Canary Wharf platforms. It was hardly a long or pivotal scene in the movie, and it wasn’t even standing in for a subway station or any kind of space equivalent. They had to do so much set dressing (probably augmented with post-production touching up) that it can’t have been significantly cheaper or quicker than just building a whole set, especially allowing for the logistics of filming in what’s usually a very busy station. And despite that, it’s still recognisable enough to anyone who’s been there that it stands out from the typical studio sets that make up the rest of the sequence.
"I've never seen that film, but Gwyneth Paltrow's character pushes the doors open when the train is about to leave so I presume she's the villain" 😂
Loved this.😂
Can confirm: she is a goopy villain.
It's about finding romance on the tube after a stranger talks to you. What genre is it in you ask? Fantasy, of course.
It’s not a bad movie….I quite enjoyed it.
…took me a second to realize why she’s a villain but that’s true: those door-openers are the worst!
My favourite part of the video is when he said “Its Jago Time!” And Hazzarded all over the video.
Could someone explain what this meme is? I’ve seen it everywhere.
@@SDCentralTSVIt came about in response to the Morbius movie's terrible ratings and was originally a sort of joke about sarcastic movie ratings acting like it was brilliant; "My favourite part was when Dr Morbius says "it's morbin time" and morbs everywhere, truly one of the films of all time"
Admittedly, that's all I know about Morbius.
I worked for LT for a spell in the late 1990's, largely in the Facilities & Infrastructure group. LT hired out Aldwych at 1200 pounds per hour, with an 8-hour minimum, for the station and platform - or 1600 per hour if you needed the train to move in and out of the station. Other LT buildings were around 400 per hour, except 55 Broadway which cost 600 per hour - all with an 8-hour minimum.
'There be money in them thar tiles!' (If you've got it, flaunt it - on film) : )
pure profit since they have to keep power on anyway…
Well that gives the idea of costs then for V for Vendetta, not only just platform filming, but the Explosive loaded train leaving the platform. (Aldwych).
@@bostonrailfan2427 Why pure profit? They could just close both and eliminate the costs...
@@garethaethwy close a line that’s already closed?
as for the pure profit: any money made from usage beyond what is paid to the power company for the lighting is pure profit- a small amount of money that is recovered in minutes from the rental fees
In Paris we have a station dedicated for movie-making. It's the not used half of Porte des Lilas station (11 - 3bis lines). The station nameplates are made to be interchangeable, allowing the station to be dressed-up as any other one of the network. The tracks are fully functional (it's on a branch used for rolling stock movements between lines) and trains can be provided by the RATP (who runs Paris metro) or volunteers of a museum for older rolling stock.
Trivia : line 3bis of Paris Metro is ridiculously short, being 1km shorter than W&C line, but has 4 stations.
3:03 I swear every single piece of graphic design from the 70s has an inexplicably menacing aura to it.
I still use my 1970s Kiln Craft ‘Bacchus’ crockery. (As seen in ‘Butterflies’)
@@AtheistOrphan I had a few pieces of "Bacchus" from an op shop in New Zealand. I passed them on to a younger family member
@@annetteconroy6921 - It’s so groovily 70s! (And brown, the official colour of the 70s).
That's just the 1970's to be honest.
I blame Terry Gilliam!
Passport to Pimlico (1949) features a District Line Q stock train (the Pimlico border control officers descend into the tunnel to stop the train). Interior footage was shot in a real train, but exterior shots used a mockup of a Q23 stock car and tunnel.
Most location footage was actually filmed on a WW2 bomb site in Lambeth, across the river from Pimlico, but coincidentally Pimlico Plumbers' main offices now occupy the site.
Most excellent! I forgot about PtP! Brilliant film, seen many times.
STANLEY H0LL0WAY, PIMILC0 FRANCE.
@shero113 good enough reason to watch it again, what ?
Sliding Doors is a fantastic film (my all time favourite). It REALLY gets you thinking about how 'little moments' (like catching a train or missing it) have conspired to change your life (whether you know it or not).
My favourite too, I am shocked that he has never seen it
Have you read the book Philomena (not the film) it really shows you the butterfly effect in action.
I couldn't get past the fact that she gets on a Waterloo and City Line train, and gets off at a Hammersmith and City Line station, although I can't remember which one.
I thought ultimately it made no difference as the ending was the same no matter whether she caught the train or not but it has been some years since I have seen it
Fun fact: the 2003 movie Control (not to be confused with the Ian Curtis biopic) was shot almost entirely on the metro lines of Budapest. They used the after midnight downtime for shooting. It even has an awkward intro speech from the then CEO of the Transport Company of Budapest.
They also used the M4 line to film a few scenes in the Halo series, I noticed it when I visited Budapest last week. Those metro lines are spotless!
_Control_ is a great film. It's about a group of ticket inspectors on the Budapest metro, and contains comedy and drama and action and romance and may or may not go supernatural at the end.
Thanks to this channel I now know where to go to film my films of an adult nature that require a period accurate tube train for some reason.
It wasn't filmed on a tube train - it was ex mainline coaches hauled by a steam loco
There was also a (short) porno filmed on TfL. As it was shot on a train in service, TfL were very very angry.
Which seems fair enough.
@@Trek001 we all want to see it, come on
I was a student at King's from 1978-81. I did once catch the tube to Aldwych just to see what it was like. It took a lot longer than walking as you point out in the video. At that time the second platform was being used by the King's gun club as a shooting gallery!
It was handy if you wanted to go beyond Holborn though, as the interchange was easy. Also reduced, albeit slightly, the number of people using the escalators at Holborn.
It was King's that led me on an unofficial tour of Aldwych after it closed - they used it for an exhibition.
@@stuartlord2358 Do you know any more about the gun club? I’m an avid student of the uses of disused stations, and I’ve never heard of this.
OMG, the thumbnail is amazing. I smashed that like button and now it's pregnant.
Wow, what a coincidence! Right after I had watched your previous video about the Waterloo & City Line, I watched a movie called "The Union" that was released on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. And your next video is about film locations on the Underground. There's a scene in this movie which is supposed to take place at Queensway tube station (per the roundel signs). However, I could clearly see the Network SouthEast stripes underneath the yellow line. Obviously one of the two Waterloo & City stations. I figured they were able to film there, because the line is closed on weekends. The train was even correct, since the same train stock was seen in the movie as would pass through Queensway.
As an ex-denizen of London, I urge people to appreciate the excellence of the Underground. There are no other systems in Europe able to carry so many people so quickly to so many places, and if there certainly are in Asia, which are additionally airier and quieter, that's because they are all over 100 years younger.
Have we officially expelled Moscow from Europe to Asia, now? It has 514.5 km of track versus London's 402 km, 15 lines versus 11, and 2,288.5 million journeys per year versus 1.181 million. Admittedly I don't think the London figures include the Liz Line or the East London Line, but then Moscow also has things not included in the Metro figures.
Perhaps you are right, though. From what I've seen of it, the Moscow Metro fits your description of Asian systems pretty well. Also, after the way that we've been treating them, the Russians seem ready to give up their love affair with Europe, and to see themselves more as part of the civilised East.
+1 for Moscow or St Petersburg systems. Being newer and built largely by German POWs they are not like mouse hole tube trains from Victorian times. Moscow metro in particular is far better.
@@kgbgb3663 Gosh, those are very impressive figures, but I don't think that many Europeans get to Moscow so frequently nowadays. I was thinking of Paris and Berlin, both of which I know well. Here in Munich, the Underground arrives every ten (!) minutes, which means that for a journey with one change, you can be standing around on platforms (in the city centre!) for 20 minutes.
@@kgbgb3663But Moscow still has no platform screen doors of any sort. Only St. Petersburg does.
@@kgbgb3663
Considering that Russians are mostly Slav's, I would still consider them Russian. Otherwise most of Eastern Europe would be classified as Asian.
And regardless; I believe the Paris Metro is busier than the Tube these days, especially when you throw the RER into the mix.
Aldwych was used for the prodigy firestarter. Although it was not the orignal plan, the orignal video was not very good and cost a lot of the budget. Walter Stern was contacted (previously produced other videos for the prodigy) and suggested aldwych but they had limited budget so it was shot in black and white.
I did a station tour not long after, and you could still see loads of glitter along the track.
5:34 - Dark side - get it - boom boom (and miss)!! 🙂
I was desperately waiting for An American Werewolf in London to be mentioned. Thank you Jago for not disappointing. In the final scene of that "confrontation" you can see a ceiling hanging clock with the time reading 13.01, despite the action taking place at nighttime in the movie. I have always thought it was a small visual error caused because it had been filmed on a Sunday and I assumed that Tottenham Court Road was a station that used to be closed on a Sunday back in those days. The film was released in 1981.
Luckily for many, I don't have cause to use Tottenham Court Road very often because it has been known for me to quote the victims dialogue from the platform to the escalators. I wrote it has been known, what I should have said is every time, without fail.
I too was waiting for a mention of that classic comedy/horror. I must admit that I would have liked to have heard more about it, perhaps even show a clip.
As for the clock, in the movie's world perhaps it was faulty ? 🙂
Granted not underground featured but another area also used for “ American Warewolf In London “ was Redcliffe Gardens ( Nearest Station Earl’s Court) , I was in a relationship with a female who’s family home was affected by the filming at Redcliffe Gardens .
Back to Paddington the Film lots of the filming was on Paddington Station and during filming on Platform 1 one rush hour a former colleague who worked for FGW forgot about the filming and one evening when everything was going wrong on the network out of Paddington he shot out of a door ( what staff use to / from the mess room 99% of the time ) forgot about the filming and ended right in the middle of the scene being filmed much to the annoyance of the director & producers etc of the film .
I made a comment a while back asking for a video about this after Jago mention filming at the awesome Canary Wharf station, expressly mentioning American Werewolf In London scene, an altimeter classic favourite of mine.
If I have time I always try to detour through Tottenham Court. My other two favourite scenes are; the silhouetted policemen’s helmets wandering around the cinema with the dodgy film, presumably filmed at Ongar 😜 and the awesome multi vehicle crash outside!! A brilliant film along with Hot Fuzz!!
Luckily for you (and despite my disabilities and not being able to do certain things like many others can) I did a special on my blog covering Tottenham Court Road/American Werewolf - it was published just two days ago - the entire movie clip from the film - showing all the locations as they were in 1981 and as they are now (or was a week ago when I took pictures around the station for the feature.)
The American crew probably didn't understand what it meant, so they didn't see the problem. 😄
Looking forward to the Aldwych video. Pleased to say I used the station circa 1990 ± whilst it was still open.
Took my Dad along. We were the only ones in the lift. And almost the only people on the platform...memories
I pride myself that the one time I used Aldwych station was for bona fide travelling purposes. It was before I moved to London and knew the geographical pointlessness of the branch. Unlike the one time I visited Ongar station just before the line’s closure when pretty much everyone was just along for the ride.
"Sliding doors" is a clever little film. The narrative separates early on into two storylines, depending on whether Gwyneth Paltrow's character makes it onto the tube train in the scene we see here or not. The same characters end up in very different scenarios following the two possible outcomes of that moment in time. I won't spoil the ending, but the diverging storylines sort of come together again.
Mind you, when the characters leave the W&C tube train, they emerge from Embankment station. Can't have everything, I suppose.
Hobbs End was the best ever fictional tube station on celluloid, featured in the fantastically creepy Quatermass and the Pit.
I loved that movie .....the actor who was fried at the end of the movie used to come into the shop where I worked
Everything about this was just excellent
That Gwyneth Paltrow/ Sliding Doors joke has to be one of the best yet.
Sliding Doors is very much worth a watch. Also you can see the interior of a class 487 on the Waterloo and City line in a episode of Dempsey and Makepeace (yeah sorry that was a while back)
Dempsey & Makepeace celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, and is currently being shown on one the minor UK TV channels on weekday afternoons. Lots of Escort XR3 action!
Yes I remember that a bomb goes off on board!
The London Underground will figure prominently in my up-coming, but as yet unfinanced, movie "Charles Tyson Yerkes vs The Daleks!"
Spoiler: The Daleks are disgusted by Yerkes villainy.
@@davidjames579 The final twist is that Yerkes IS the Daleks!
@@alanmoss3603 Oh my God! That explains everything!
Who will win eh, Who will win?
@@alanmoss3603 That's not canon, surely?
Yerkes became Davros and then invented the Daleks.
Right, I'll go back and look at it again.
My wife and I have been in Aldwych/Strand on one of the Hidden London tours.
At last! Mr Hazzard gives Doctor Who a mention! I knew he would one day!
Thanks Jago, certainly didn't know about the Star Wars connection. Maybe as a Halloween type theme, TFL could change 'Aldwych' to 'Oldwitch' ... 😂
I do remember hearing about a space that’s rented out for shootings and that’s about it. Happy to learn more as always.
There’s a film from the 70s called Deathline which is a horror movie about a canibal who lives in the London Underground. It was one of the films that used Aldwych as the location for the underground stations.
Must have been the inspiration for 'Creep' (2004) that used Aldwych and Charing Cross.
The above ground setting was around Russell Square, where the hero lives with his girlfriend, who goes missing on the Underground. It's been a while since I've since Deathline but I do remember Russell Square station featuring, although IMDB (sometimes accurate, sometimes not), while acknowledging Aldywych was used, says the Tube action takes place at a station called 'Museum'. It also notes in the goofs section that in one shot a sign directing passengers to the District Line is clearly seen.
Yes, I remember that film. The cannibal wandered around shouting 'Mind the doors' which was the only speech he possessed. Endearing rather than scary!
Still a great movie, though. Donald Pleasence is superb in it, as a 'seen it all' copper. His parting remark to Christopher Lee's smarmy Civil Servant, which you see, but do not hear, is very funny. 👍👍👍
Absolutely fantastic film
I like the idea of the jubilee line extension being a sci-fi set!
A couple of extra notes on "Thor- The Dark World"
* There is the amusing bit with Thor in full battle armour boarding the tube and no-one batting an eye, which seems Very London to me.
* He gets off the tube in Greenwich Town. Which isn't on the tube. So instead he alights at Greenwich Park's underground toilet with a tube emblem mounted above it. That nearly made me laugh in the cinema when I noticed.. 😜
Keep up the good work!
5:20 They definitely recorded something similar there last summer as well. The station was still open but with filming in parts, but now I forget what it was for
4:54 Haha great observation
Looking forward to seeing the Aldwych video!
'Look Back in Ongar'.
Certainly adult-oriented themes.
MIDNIGHT AT THE 0ASIS
My paternal grandparents lived in Chipping Ongar, where the station is. In the 1980's, various council employees went on strike due to pay issues, and, for several weeks, the library had to close. This led to the single greatest headline in a local paper, namely;
'BOOK LACK IN ONGAR'.
There are options outside London too. Darkest Hour set in 1940 used a slightly backdated 1959 Driving Motor at Mangapps in Essex.
Extra points if that adult movie was called "Everything gets longer in Ongar" 🙂
Ongargasm?
The Edging and Schlongar Railway
Debbie does Debden
Well, that made me chuckle
Suxbridge
you've got a mind like sewer - Hooray!!
@@robinjones6999 Yep.
"John Ho(L)mes Signal"
5:53 - the last time we were in London we went to dinner at the Supperclub in the tube carriage at Walthamstow Pumphouse and the evening we were there there was a group there filming something in the carriage not used for dining.
I used to use the Aldwych branch as I did actually work in the Aldwych. Driven the Class 31 on the Epping Ongar line. Well worth doing.
This video has some of the best Jago jokes yet
Yes please to the Aldwych episode. I spent a good deal of my life watching and waiting to see what was going to happen to Aldwych. And, in the end, nothing happened at all!
Thank you Jago for an interesting Video - didn't know about the Film Locations until now!!! 😉🚂🚂🚂
As I have said before, St John's Wood was featured in the video for "Bedsitter" by Soft Cell...That Dr Who story from the late 60s scared the life out of me, when my Uncle took me to London, at the age of 8...but these days a Yeti on the Underground probably wouldn't look out of place!
I remember the use of the 'Tube' for 'An American Werewolf in London' very well! Thanks for the memory! A very scary part of that film!
As always, job well done. Cheerio from New England.
A great update as usual thank you very much.
6:13 - The blanked-off station is Blake Hall.
The station name always gives me the shivers, it sounds like a sequel to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher".
Hope you do a video on the c2c jago. I've always wanted you to do one. Appreciate and love your vids ❤😊
especially with new contactless payment being introduced
Pitsea Station is an extraordinary place. Its history is tinged with tragedy, as a horrific fatal derailment occurred near there in 1961.
"Sliding Doors" is actually a really good film, one of her best.
I love you. You do such a good job and always fills me with joy.
I like to imagine that Grandma is still living in Edgware and that Mum took my brother and I to see "Mary Poppins" at the Burnt Oak Odeon, on a wood trimmed 1938 stock train. 😄
I remember the ones with the wooden floor slats.
@@marksimons8861 They stick in my memory too from my first time in London.
@@marksimons8861 I remember being on one in '87 or '88, I can't remember what line it was on. I was kind of cool in a weird way. No idea why it was in use - emergency spare or so it could be filmed somewhere.
@@gerrycoll2560 I actually saw the model I remembered in the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.
I requested this after a comment in one of your previous ‘video’s’ and am pleased you did it. Thank you! Next time I watch a movie featuring an underground I will watch a little more closely.
The TV series Lovejoy was filmed locally and it always fascinated me that the et would use one side of Long Melford high street and splice in a different village for the other side. Presumably lighting?
it might be worth doing a video on the appearance of the underground in video games. there are a few examples off the top of my head. Tomb Raider 3, Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3, Hellgate London, The Getaway Black Monday, The Order 1886... I am sure there are more. Plus the multitude of railway simulators, the recent Fallout London mod, and the capability to recreate the tube in games like Cities Skylines or Minecraft
The Doctor Who serial "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" also had a tube station set, with exteriors being filmed at Moorgate.
The Dalek Invasion of Earth serial made use of the old Wood Lane (Central Line) station
@@snapea Not sure I knew that. Interesting.
@@snapea Close to BBC Television Centre
@@davidjames579Yes, extremely convenient location!
@@davidbull7210 also notable for being the very first serial to make use of significant location filming (there had been a tiny bit in the Reign of Terror, but otherwise it had been an entirely studio recorded series up to that point)
OMG go and watch Sliding Doors!!! Thanks Jago 👍
Thank you for mentioning 'The Web of Fear'! I was only a baby at the time but as a Who fan I've heard all about the BBC/LT handbags at dawn!
I saw the thumbnail and I knew it would be a great one. Great video!
Thanks for covering this subject. Phil @ ReelStreets
Excellent stuff Jago. Would never get a script like that from an AI bot. Still remember that Dr Who series with the Yeti too
At Charing Cross you've also got the construction tunnels for the Jubilee Line, which I think have featured in one or more film.
Hmmm.... to me the pattern of the Leslie Green tiles on the Superman-snippet at 2:11 looks very much like the shuttle platform (platform 5) at Holborn.
Excellent video very interesting really enjoyed it.
I can recommend the London Transport Museum tour of Charing Cross - they even show you a clip of 'Skyfall' which was filmed there. And Jago, I can recommend 'Sliding Doors'!
"Morbius, one of the movies of all time" - that was a great line!
This video is a dream come true to my 8 year old son and I, thank you!!
Hooray! Been wanting this one for years, and so pleased the Web of Fear fact got in. Between this and AI you're on a roll. (If I'm ever earning consistently I'll get round to sponsoring and become a silver chirping ball to your Great Intelligence...
Addiscombe, Blackhorse Lane and Woodside tram stops have featured in some famous Jago Hazard videos!
So that's me disabused of the notion that some fondly remembered episodes of doctor Who were actually filmed on an unused part of the tube. Looking forward to the history of Aldwych station to correct/confirm the tales I was told regarding it's history. I used it regularly in the early 1980's and found it very useful when transporting gas cylinders and lead bricks to Holborn.
You and London Transport both. As Jago says, the set was so convincing (unusual for Dr Who in that era, where they famously used to wobble) that LT tried to prosecuteb the BBC for trespass.
Thank you for reminding me of the Dr Who Yetis…I’ve only just come out from behind the sofa, having seen it when I was 5…
This was very entertaining. Thank you very much.
When you mentioned the Epping Ongar railway i knew exactly what you were going to talk about, i remember recognising the station in said video and then the ensuing news articles
i think the Aldwych branch is still connected to the main piccadilly line and still signalled partially so that if needed trains can still be brought in and out of the station
Neverwhere, now that sparked some memories! Didn't they also use the underground mail train system in that as well?
As it happens I have recently been getting into the Sweeneyalogy channel here (I think I spelled that correctly!), which looks at the filming locations from episodes of The Sweeney, which had a couple of scenes on the surface tube lines.
The Mail Rail was also used in the Bruce Willis film Hudson Hawke; a re-painted train stood in for the (fictitious) Vatican Postal Service Railway
Yay! Another jago video
Summer Holiday is filmed initially in the (now demolished) huge bus garage, which was so big to handle the extra long Tube trains, end to end, that could be picked up in one go, not split (the site is so long that one end was Elstree Hill South Station, and the other Bushey Heath Station!) It was the longest such building in the world. Sadly, despite the tunnels being dug (until recently you could still see the portals), bridges built, etc the project, almost finished, was abandoned, and the Tube works abandoned, and, used for buses (hence the busmen converting a bus for their summer holiday). It did though have a part in WWII where it was used to build parts of Halifax bombers (apparently their seats used London Transport cloth!). The extra long trains were the expresses Jago mentioned a while back.
I was actually working on a drama series last autumn that used the locations you outlined at Bank, Charing Cross and Aldwych (which is a nightmare to get down with heavy gear by the way because the lift isn’t operational anymore). We also used the District line at Kensington Olympia (which they occasionally facilitate) and Stockwell. If a film wants to use a specific live station, they have to do a very short night shoot when the station is closed, and they can’t have trains.
Great video. One of your best!
Another London-based underground film location appears at the start of 2016 classic, Now You See Me 2. There's a piece set at an obscure entrance to the New York subway, and for that they decided to film the Greenwich foot tunnel. (I assume the scene later in the film set next to the Cutty Sark made the logistics simpler)
A stretch of track between East Finchley and Highgate depot was used for "Tube Tales"
"Patriot Games" (Jack Ryan film) scene was filmed in Aldwych I think
The video Firestarter by The Prodigy was filmed in the tunnels and lift shaft of Aldwych Station. The track is still covered to this day in exploding metallic paper which never made the final cut of the video.
6:46 Surely if you wanted to make adult films on the underground you’d do it at Cockfosters or Shepherd’s Bush?
This has actually happened in reverse aswell, meaning that another system was used to masquerade as the Underground. For the Seconds to Distaster episode covering the Kings Cross fire they used Monument and St James on the Tyne & Wear Metro. Both stations had all trace of Metro branding covered up with LU branding where filming took place along with Monument being temporarily renamed Kings Cross. And for the wooden escalator shots they used the ones off the Pedestrian Tunnel of the Tyne Tunnels.
Another great one Jago
Morden was used in Poirots Hickory Hickory Dock, and Arnos Grove appeared in Poirots Wasps Nest. Blake's 7 episode Ultraworld featured tunnels that were meant to be the inside of a spacecraft. Your welcome.
You're*
@@michaeljoseph7879 👍 thanks, quite right.
Yeah, funny coincidence, saw a clip from Ultraworld just yesterday and noticed they were running around in what looked like London underground tunnels. Apparently it's the Camden Town deep level shelter. The Dr. Who story The Sunmakers also filmed down there, a couple of years earlier.
I came looking to see if anyone had already mentioned the Blake's 7 link, I'm 8 hours too late it seems
Also the 1980's BBC adaptation of "The Tripods" used the Underground (including train) to stand in for the Paris Metro.
Ah ha so it was Tottenham Court Road where "American Werewolf in London" was filmed, no wonder the station looked strangely familiar! Thanks Jago!
Also I believe either Charing cross or Aldwych was used in 28 weeks later as and in 28 days later they used canary wharf station also I belive they walked along Docklands light rail track as well
Canary Wharf Jubilee line was a must visit place for me when I was in the UK in 2023 with its Star Wars connection. The Andor series (a prequel with a character from Rogue One) also used filming locations in Canary Wharf, the Barbican and Brunswick Centre.
Great video! One of the most interesting
'American Werewolf' mench & no Jenny Agutter?! ('Nurse! - the screens, it's happening again!' : )
Thanks Jago, an amazingly expansive list, who'd have thunk it?
one of my favourite examples of railways (not necessarily the tube, but just railways in general) being used in media was the Nene Valley Railway being used as the location for the music video of Queen's song Breakthru
The NVR also has the advantage of having a continental stock loading gauge, so the director can pretend to be in Hungary (or somewhere).
Brilliant and a pun filled video sir!
This is really obscure, but film enthusiasts may recognise the name of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. An early film of his titled Calamari Union (1985) features a journey on the then very recently opened Helsinki Metro, filmed at night when the line was closed. The journey is supposed to feel really long for plot reasons, but it sort of ruins the effect that the train runs through the same station three times. 🙂
Lol. He also made a film in London; I Hired A Contract Killer
Hi Jago :) i have recently (as in last week) been to London and made use of some of the Underground. Namely Circle, Metropolitan, Bakerloo, Victoria , Piccadilly and Elizabeth. Not like end to end ofc, we went sightseeing not breaking records of travel ;) but it was mostly familiar thanks to your (and Geoff's) vids :) and for that i am thankful. One nitpick i would have, the UA-cam vids don't really convey the noise the carriages really make (and they can be pretty noisy next to a second to last carriage tail end door on the older stock). One would hope the tubetubers would some day... crank the noise levels up to represent this:) but i also understand why you don't. Stansted express was real glide as was Elizabeth 😊 Cheers and good week to you 😊
Thank you Jago, one of the UA-camrs of all time. My favourite video is when you Hazzard all over the place.
Charing Cross was also used for the Alex Parks music video "Cry". Yes, Fame Academy's Alex Parks - that's a name you haven't heard since 2006.
Another use of the Tube was in the 'Adam Adamant' TV series back in the early or mid-1960s. I remember one scene with a Tube train pulling in full of skeletons!
Nice to close in that London Transport badged steam locomotive at the EOR. I rode behind that just yesterday.