Royal Eagle Hotel

Location: London, England
Address: 26-30 Craven Road
Date: Sept 2015
Website: www.royaleaglehotel.co.uk

   The original Trainspotting movie, about the lives of a group of heroin users, was released in February 1996.  A sequel is coming out in February 2017 which reunites the original cast 20 years later.  The movie itself is also set 20 years after the first so there was no need for a make-up team to age the actors.  Time had already done that for them.  When we were in London we visited the Royal Eagle Hotel which was the filming location for some of the final scenes from Trainspotting.

 

  A mews is a row of stables.  This would be where the horses were kept, so it makes sense that there would be one next to a hotel.  Craven Road has a lot of mews and a few of them are pictured above.  None of the mews above appear in the movie and these days they would be filled with people, not horses.

  The reason we mention mews is because the scene in question opens with the group walking out of Smallbrook Mews, crossing Craven Road and heading into the Royal Eagle Hotel for a drug deal (above).   The group consists of Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremner) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle).  The first three are all heroin addicts and Begbie is just a violent, troubled man.

  The deal goes well and the group now has a large bag of cash.  While the others are sleeping Renton steals the bag and heads out into the street.  He heads down to Gloucester Mews.  You can see the curved opening to the mews just past the man with the suitcases.  The Royal Eagle Hotel has also cleaned up a lot since 1996, perhaps due to all the Trainspotting fans spending the night.

  During this entire scene the soundtrack is playing Born Slippy by Underworld.  This is a great track on its own as it slowly builds up.  It works perfectly here.  Finally, Renton turns and enters Gloucester Mews.

  The camera is on an angle as Renton walks towards it.  You can see the opening to Smallbrook Mews across the street. The camera turns with Renton and flips to look down into the mews.  A lot of the walls have been repainted, but the black trim in the bottom of the picture (left side of the mews) matches with what we see in the film.

    Renton has gotten away with it.  Begbie goes ballistic.

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Map of Our World
Royal Eagle Hotel

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Post # 158

The Happiness Hotel

Location: London, England
Address: 134-136 Westbourne Terrace
Date: Sept 2015
Website:  muppet.wikia.com

  The second Muppet movie, The Great Muppet Caper, was filmed in London, England.  One of the locations used in the movie is just a short walk from Paddington Station.  Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo end up staying at a hotel called the Happiness Hotel where they meet the rest of the Muppet gang.

  The building looked to be in much better shape when we visited than it does in the movie.  The hotel was such a dump that the bus would not even stop there.  When Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo arrive the bus slows down and they get tossed to the curb.  The hotel is surprised that somebody else actually wants to check in.

 

  The next time Kermit The Frog and his friends arrive at the hotel they are driven there by Beauregard the cab driver.  Beauregard is best known as the janitor of the Muppet Theatre.  He apologizes that he can only take them as far as the lobby and then proceeds to drive the cab around the corner, across the courtyard and straight through the front door of the hotel.

  The Great Muppet Caper was a wonderful achievement in both puppetry and film and we enjoyed our brief visit to one of its real life locations.  The song Happiness Hotel is also one of the highlights of the movie's soundtrack.  

Well, welcome home to Happiness Hotel !!

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Map of Our World
Happiness Hotel

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Post # 138

Blackwing Studios

Location: London, England
Address: 1 Pepper Street
Date: Sept 2015
Website: www.saveallhallows.com

   We have always been fans of the electronic music that was coming out of London, England in the early 1980s.  Several people who made large contributions to this music are recording engineer Eric Radcliffe, producer Daniel Miller and musician Vincent Clarke.  They all found early success at All Hallows Church inside a recording studio called Blackwing.  All Hallows Church was bombed twice during World War II and Blackwing Studios closed in 2001.  We decided to pay a visit to this site while there was still something left.

  We turned off of Copperfield Street and into a little garden beside the church.

  A notice beside a doorway explained some of the history of the church.  This notice also mentioned that the bands Depeche Mode and Yazoo had both recorded albums here.  Depeche Mode is a band that achieved great commercial success around the world.  Vincent Clarke was an early member of the band and wrote their hit song Just Can't Get Enough.  Depeche Mode recorded their first two albums at Blackwing.

  In doing some online research we were able to locate archived photos of  Depeche Mode on the All Hallows Church grounds.  We found a photo of the band posing next to the cross (above) as well as sitting on a bench next to the brick wall and generally goofing around in the garden.

  Vincent Clarke left Depeche Mode and created the group Yazoo with singer Alison Moyet.  Their first album Upstairs At Eric's makes reference to engineer Eric Radcliffe who was also the owner of Blackwing Studios.  The album spawned the hits Situation and Don't Go.  After a second album with Yazoo, Vincent Clarke recorded Never Never at Blackwing with singer Fergeal Sharkey under the name The Assembly.

  Vincent Clarke then left Blackwing Studios and went on to create the band Erasure with singer Andy Bell.  Depeche Mode replaced the vacancy left by Vincent Clarke with musician Alan Wilder and also left Blackwing in order to record their future albums elsewhere.  Daniel Miller continued to produce for them during the 1980s.  Other notable bands have recorded at Blackwing including Fad Gadget, The Pixies and the Cocteau Twins.  Even part of Nine Inch Nails debut album Pretty Hate Machine was recorded at Blackwing. 

 A community is trying to save the church from being developed and we hope that it can stay this way.  They maintain and use the gardens surrounding the church.  As well as being of interest to synthpop fans as the home of Blackwing Studios, All Hallows is one of the last remaining undeveloped World War II bombsites in London.

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Map of Our World
Blackwing Studios

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Post # 134

Farting Lane

 

Location: London, England
Address:  Carting Lane
Date: Sept 2015
Website: www.atgtickets.com

  Carting Lane is just a small street, but it is an area of important firsts and lasts in London's history.  On the north end it can only be accessed by pedestrians via a stairway.  On the east stands the Savoy Theatre which opened in 1881 and is also the first public building in the world to be lit throughout with electricity.  The theatre also became famous for presenting the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan.  The opera Patience was the first to appear at the Savoy, but perhaps the best known is The Pirates of Penzance.

  As you head south towards the Thames you will see a single lamp standing on the west side of the lane.  A small plaque next to the lamp lets us know that this is the last remaining sewer gas destructor lamp in the City of Westminster.  The City of Westminster includes a large part of central London.  Both the Queen's residence at Buckingham Palace, along with Big Ben and parliament can be found in Westminster.  More obviously this is also where the famous Westminster Abbey can be found.

  This cast iron lamp was installed as part of the Victoria Embankment sewer system which opened in 1870.  It is this lamp that gives Carting Lane its oh so clever nickname.  One can only imagine what London smelled like at the end of the 1800s and this lamp was doing its part to help reduce that smell.   The lantern is designed to take the biogas that emits from the sewer system and burn it off.  We visited in the mid-afternoon and as you can see the lamp burns 24 hours a day.  We were also pleased to report that this lane did not smell any different than any of the others we had walked through earlier that day.

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Map of Our World
Farting Lane Lamp , Savoy Theatre

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Post # 88

Bond In Motion (Part Two)

Location: London, England
Address: 45 Wellington Street
Date: Aug 2015
Website: www.londonfilmmuseum.com

  The London Film Museum at Covent Garden has been displaying the largest collection of James Bond movie vehicles ever assembled.  At the time of writing this post it has been extended until further notice.  It is also going to include vehicles from the latest Bond movie Spectre.  All of the items on display are originals used in filming.  When we were in London we could not pass up this opportunity as we have been enjoying the 007 movies our entire lives.   Below are some of the pictures we took during our visit.  We have presented them chronologically by film.  This is part two of two blog posts. ( Click here for Part One. ) This post covers movies where Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig play the role of James Bond.

The Living Daylights (1987)

James Bond's Aston Martin has a laser that chops off the bottom of a police car.  It can also shoot missiles just in case you need to clear a tractor trailer from the road.  If needed it has skis and spiked tires for escape over ice.  It even has rocket power to enhance its jumping ability.  Ultimately, this vehicle ends up wrecked in a snowbank.

 Next, Bond rides down a snowy hill with Kara Milvoy inside her cello case.  All the while protecting the precious instrument and making it past the border patrol and into Austria.

Licence to Kill (1989)

This is a passport prop from Timothy Dalton's two movie run as James Bond.

GoldenEye (1995)

Bond races this car against Xenia Onatopp and her Ferrari.  They encounter a truck full of hay and knock over a group of cyclists before Bond's passenger, an MI6 evaluator, urges him to stop.  He does, but a bottle of Bollinger champagne gets other things started.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

This is a model of Bond's BMW that Q qives him while disguised as an Avis agent.  Bond remote control races this car through a parking structure while in the back seat.  The car takes on a huge amount of gunfire and Bond defends himself with numerous gadgets. He jumps from the vehicle and it ends up crashing out of the top floor of the parking garage and goes head first into the Avis car rental across the street.  Congratulations on a safe journey.

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Bond shoots out of MI6 headquarters in this boat and pursues another boat up the Thames.

As seen in the storyboard above, they race around several wharfs and Bond does a barrel roll flip over the other boat.  Bond even takes the boat through the streets for a shortcut before landing back in the water near London's O2 arena  He abandons his boat when he leaps from it onto a rope hanging from an escaping hot air balloon.

Bond skis down a hill while pursued by several of these Parahawks.  Some of them are blown up, but the final one is sent straight off a cliff.

This is a model of Valentin Zukovsky's (Robbie Coltrane) caviar factory.  Bond ambushes Zukovsky at the factory, but then some helicopters with huge hanging saws swoop in and start to cut the place apart.

Bond gets into his BMW and shoots down one of the helicopters, but another copter comes from behind and saws his vehicle in half.

Die Another Day (2002)

 

One of these yellow skidoos runs into Bond's invisible Aston Martin.  Bond takes off racing across the ice.

Under heavy gunfire from Zao in his green Jaguar, the camouflage on Bond's car fails.  Bond turns the car backwards to use his missiles against Zao's.  Bond gets flipped over, but uses his ejector seat to upright the car again.

Bond takes out 2 more yellow skidoos as he enters the melting ice palace to save Jinx (Halle Berry).  His Aston Martin's camouflage is restored just in time to escape a ramming from Zao.

These are passport props from when Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig played James Bond.

Casino Royale (2006)

When his poker game takes a short break, Bond and Vesper Lynd head back to his room.  From the hallway, James overhears Le Chiffre being attacked.  The attackers identify Bond and a fight in the stairs ensues.  One attacker is quickly dropped down the stairwell while the other fights Bond with a knife.  Eventually, Bond chokes the last attacker to death.  During the scuffle Bond's tuxedo has been bloodied and ruined.

James goes looking for Vesper Lynd in his Aston Martin.  She has been left tied up in the road.  As Bond speeds along he only notices her there at the last moment and violently swerves the car.  This causes it to flip over several times.  Actually, this car flip is now in the Guinness Book of World Records for most cannon rolls in a car.  The record is seven.  

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Bond is in the middle of a high speed chase.  His Aston Martin takes on a huge amount of gunfire and ends up getting its door ripped off by a truck.  Eventually, he escapes his pursuers and pulls into headquarters in Siena, Italy.

James Bond steals this bike and heads to the docks and jumps it onto a boat in order to catch up with Camille Montes.

Skyfall (2012)

Bond chases after Patrice who has stolen a computer hard drive. They race on bikes through streets and shops and even along the rooftops. Patrice drops his bike and jumps off of a bridge and onto a train. Bond runs his bike into the edge of the bridge and leaps to the train below while his bike spins off out of control.

Sylva's (Javier Bardem) helicopter flies in to launch artillery fire on Bond's Skyfall hideout.  The helicopter lands and Bond fends off Sylva and his men.  The helicopter blows up Bond's car and then Bond intentionally blows up the house.  He escapes into a tunnel while the blast takes out the helicopter as it flies over the home.

Spectre (2015)

This is part two of two blog posts.  Click here for Part One.

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Map of Our World
London Film Museum

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Post # 79