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Most unconvincing Location doubling

Started by George White, April 16, 2017, 11:59:23 AM

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Dr Rock

Quote from: Glebe on April 17, 2017, 12:14:34 PM
Maybe it's supposed to be magic.

Some reckon it's supposed to be a dream don't they? Reflecting all his paranoia and fears. And presumably when he dreams he doesn't construct very realistic depictions of New York.

buzby

Quote from: Trojan_Jockey on April 16, 2017, 11:34:34 PM
Yes, the result of Stanley Kubrick's fear of flying. I immediately thought of "Full Metal Jacket" when I saw the thread title. Because there was no way that Stanley was flying out to the far-east, they used the Norfolk broads to double for Vietnam, which to be fair didn't look too bad. They then used somewhere in the Docklands to stand in for urban Vietnam. The strategic placement of half a dozen palm trees didn't really convince and all the way through I was thinking that it looked more like Barnsley than Vietnam. To be fair, some people say you don't even need the second half of the movie anyway.

It was the massive disused Beckton Gasworks at Gallions Reach (it closed in 1969 when natural gas took over from town gas). Prior to FMJ, it had been used as a location for many films and TV shows (The Sweeney, Brannigan, the start fo For Your Eyes Only when Blofeld gets dropped down the chimney, 1984, Biggles etc.). Kubrick was given permission to do whatever he wanted with the site as it was being demolished anyway, so he used an explosive demolition team to selectively destroy the buildings to represent the Battle of Huế during the Tet Offensive. If you look at archive pictures from the battle, it doesn't look that out of place (it also looks like Kubrick used archive pictures and newsreels as the basis for some of his scenes).

After FMJ, Beckton wasn't much use as film location as it was left as it was at the end of filming, even all the Vietnamese posters and signs were left intact (which is odd for Kubrick, as he was usually very careful to destroy scenery and props to avoid them being used by other films).

It did become a popular location for music videos though, with Loop's Arc-Lite and Oasis' D'You Know What I Mean using the main Full Metal Jacket set (one of the 3-towered retort houses).

I took the DLR out there a couple of years ago to see is any of it still existed but unfortunately apart from some gasometers it's either all been redeveloped or reduced to piles of hardcore (the former site now houses the DLR depot, a sewage works and a retail/business park). The Beckton Alps are still rhere at the end of the DLR line - it was the massive slag heap from the works that was later landscaped and had a dry ski slope built on it, but it had to close as the heap was unstable and kept damaging the concrete base of the slope.

The other dodgy location in FMJ was using Bassingbourn Barracks as a substitute for Parris Island. They went to the trouble of changing the roadsigns and putting US-style fire hydrants in, but the Give Way lines on the road junctions are all still on the right.

steveh

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 16, 2017, 04:53:42 PM
It made me laugh when in Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Tom Cruise's character enters a jazz club, Sonata off a New York back street and descends a staircase where he arrives in Madame JoJos off Brewer Street, London Soho.

One of the New York street scenes is shot in Worship St just north of Liverpool St station. A friend of mine worked there at the time so seeing it on the cinema screen was rather jarring.

George White

2000's Return to the Secret Garden - set in a Yorkshire/North Carolina where Heathrow is the nearest airport.

Dr Syntax Head

The aftermath scenes in Threads are supposed to be in Sheffield. Very unconvincing as it's quite obviously Plymouth on a normal Friday evening. You can tell because there was obviously no set design needed.

George White

#35
The Universal backlot doubles for all of Southern England, even the bits that look like the Rio Grande. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DJJ7voSVVQ 1972's sadly failed Hound of the Baskervilles/Sherlock Holmes pilot with Stewart Granger and Bernard Fox, and guest star William Shatner.
I love the Little Europe set at Universal, in all the Rathbone Holmeses too and the Universal horrors, in Heroes as Cork, JAG as Belfast, London in everything from the Questor Tapes, Gene Roddenberry's failed android pilot, to early royal biopic cash-in The Woman I love with Richard Chamberlain and Faye Dunaway as Edward and Wallis, to episodes of Ironside, recently turned up in Agents of SHIELD as Belarus, now that Universal have an even less convincing specific London set, as part of their New York set - which doubled as London in Austin Powers, Murder She Wrote and What's Love Got To Do With It.

This US crime show based on an Irish murder has been drawing attention in the media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gv6wLZRyDI laughably awful, "police" not gardai, accents that range from the terrible to the non-existent.

Cuellar

Quote from: Clive Langham on April 17, 2017, 02:26:27 PM
I'm never sure where Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is supposed to be set

A chocolate factory.

George White

Europe. Nowhere specific, just a generic Europe.
Or Montreal.

Glebe


Mister Six

I'll always fondly remember the rolling hills of Hull in the Doctor Who episode Blink.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: George White on April 20, 2017, 07:45:26 PM
the Questor Tapes, Gene Roddenberry's failed android pilot, to early

You're the only other person on Earth that seems to remember that strange TV movie.

billtheburger

I recently got mugged at Chester North train station in Hollyoaks.
Along comes my mate who works for the transport police to ruin the illusion by telling everyone it was actually Southport.

George White

Two Loves (1961) - MGM lot as New Zealand, with Japanese and Latinos playing Maoris.

Bobtoo

Most of the tower blocks being demolished in the closing titles of T2 are actually in Dundee.

non capisco

I was watching a 'MacGyver' episode back in my student days when I'd sit in front of anything to put off revising. Part of it was set in 'The Balkan Peninsula'.



Yep, definitely the Balkan Peninsula, that. Classic Balkan architecture.

mothman

Ah, yes, Bataczy, I'd know it anywhere.

Glebe

Quote from: non capisco on April 30, 2017, 11:13:44 PMI was watching a 'MacGyver' episode back in my student days when I'd sit in front of anything to put off revising. Part of it was set in 'The Balkan Peninsula'.

At the end of the episode, MacGyver escapes on a
Spoiler alert
giant, inflatable pig
[close]
.

George White

The Bastard (1978) - Hollywood neo-Victorian manor doubles as"Kentland, England", 1779, with the Universal backlot's Little Europe as London and a sort of Irish pub as an inn in Bristol. Weirdly, the Boston scenes look more English.

George White

Quote from: Bobtoo on April 30, 2017, 07:50:40 AM
Most of the tower blocks being demolished in the closing titles of T2 are actually in Dundee.
Similarly, Sheffield doubles for Chicago in F.I.S.T.

Harpo Speaks

In the Red Dwarf episode 'Better Than Life', they emerge on to what was intended to be some sort of sun-soaked tropical beach location, but in reality is Rhyl on a particularly overcast day. And that's exactly what it looks like.

There was one particular scene that had to be abandoned altogether as Craig Charles and Danny John-Jules were sat there shivering in a supposedly idyllic paradise.

George White

Man Hunt, 1941 "rozzers", pearly kings and young Roddy McDowell help disguise a  backlot London, Joan Bennett and Walter Pidgeon's accents/lack of accents, less so.       
Decent moralebooster Yank in the RAF -photographed by  Ronald Neame, aerial stuff in England, land stuff US.

Operation Petticoat -the same area of Florida doubles semi-convincingly as the Philippines and  Australia for thsi pleasing but not very funny comedy. John Wayne's nonsensical German-Australian war film the Sea Chase similarly uses anonymous American locations to double for Oz.
12 O'Clock High convincingly recreates rural England, the 1960s Quinn Martin TV version less so. B/W helps.
John Wayne film Blood Alley uses San Francisco as Hong Kong rather epically in some ways, but is let down by the characters, and Anita Ekberg doubles as Chinese. Godawful.
Some shots in Derek Farr's ropey quota quickie Teheran look genuinely exotic, compared to the rest of the film. Apparently shot partly in Italy.
The Four Before Dawn, a Franchot Tone-starring Maugham adap struggles to create an English atmosphere in Arizona, feels like dinner theater.

George White

Dublin doubling as London in Primeval s4/5, with Dublin buses, Luas lines, Irish numberplates, everything visible.

gilbertharding

Quote from: buzby on April 17, 2017, 11:54:38 PM

The other dodgy location in FMJ was using Bassingbourn Barracks as a substitute for Parris Island. They went to the trouble of changing the roadsigns and putting US-style fire hydrants in, but the Give Way lines on the road junctions are all still on the right.
I spent a few weekends at Bassingbourn Barracks in the mid 80s, because I was in the Air Cadets: we used the army ranges there for adventure training.

There were palm trees visible on the far side of the disused airfield, which someone explained were to do with a Vietnam war film someone had recently made - so apparently some of the scenes from the second half of the film were done there too.

George White

Yesterday, ITV3 showed Murder, She Wrote - Another Killing in Cork. Like most MSWS, it thinks all Irish mansions are run as private hotels with large staffs, and interiors that don't match the second unit Irish exteriors at all. This episode had weird Californian scrubland that looked more Antipodean than anything, Irish actress Bairbre Dowling actually giving us an authentic Cork accent, unlike other actors' South African twangs and Rod Taylor just being Aussie, and a character played by DUBLIN-born James Lancaster did say eejit, while the killer turned out to be a combination of Martin Jarvis "of the Shropshire Repertory Company" and Carolyn "Abby from Survivors/Zita Steptoe" Seymour dragged up as a beardy Irish traveller.

Serge

Quote from: Harpo Speaks on June 26, 2017, 06:11:51 AMIn the Red Dwarf episode 'Better Than Life', they emerge on to what was intended to be some sort of sun-soaked tropical beach location, but in reality is Rhyl on a particularly overcast day. And that's exactly what it looks like.

Oh Christ yes, I saw this again recently, and it did rather ruin the episode. Well, that and the supposed Marilyn Monroe lookalike who doesn't look a damn thing like her.

George White

Leslie Ash's sister, wasn't it, star of Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse, the female Confessions... spinoff.

George White

Watching Falcon Crest, where they used rain and a wider selection of coffins to differentiate British and American graveyards.

George White

The Master's end scenes are supposed to be in England. Look exactly like 50s USA.

biggytitbo

Starship Troopers is very obviously filmed on earth, despite purporting to he set on an alien planet.

Glebe

Quote from: biggytitbo on December 06, 2017, 10:11:48 PMStarship Troopers is very obviously filmed on earth, despite purporting to he set on an alien planet.

But which of the twenty earths*, Biggy?

*Twenty CGI earths.