1949 Film on London Heathrow

[Deleted]

This is a British film in the old style, but it dates from 1949 and deals with the ongoing construction of London Heathrow. Some interesting shots of aircraft too.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=83GhiAqvCk8

[Tom/CalClassic]

Nice. We're also looking for this film that apparently has nice views of Heathrow.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0047319/

[Deleted]

Tom,
    A remastered version was issued in 2009 and is available on Amazon.uk  Shot in colour, with plenty of Stratocruisers and Constellations, apparently. There is a warning that it is a Region 2 DVD and may not play outside Europe, but I think modern DVD players will have no problem with it,
Ken

[Tom/CalClassic]

I've been warned that it doesn't play on many US DVD players, so I haven't taken the chance.

[Deleted]

I have ordered it. Won't these things always play on a computer with something like VLC media player? I think so. I watch all my DVDs on computer these days and when it comes if it will play on mine it should play on yours,
vlc-media-player.en.softonic.com/

[gwhess]

Nice video! Thanks for sharing the link.

Gary

[jwh]

There is a very good DVD available called "Heathrow The Early Years" on which this movie appears. I can certainly recommend it as it shows some great vintage films.

"Out of the Clouds" is also worth obtaining if not for the Connies or Stratocruisers but for vintage James Robertson Justice.

Both DVDs are listed as Region 2 but if you have a quality player you will have no problem watching them.

John

[Deleted]

There is also this, one of the films upon it being the You Tube one linked above. Unfortunately none of the others seem to be on You Tube:

www.videoscene.co.uk/london-airport-heathrow-1949-1965-a-short-films-collection.html

This has the same three films as Heathrow The Early Years, and others too. On playback, I was a film-maker of sorts a few years ago and looked specifically into the 'Regions' issue. The advice I received was that it only affects older players - that is, about ten years old - and that anything more recent will play both the European PAL format and the U.S. NTSC format. In any case, as I said above, I am virtually certain that a decent computer media player will deal with anything.

Ken

[Deleted]

As a postscript to all this, the link below is to a very interesting article adapted from Flight magazine for 1946 about early BOAC Constellation flights across the Atlantic. The original author crossed below 10,000 feet because the superchargers could not be used. There is a link to the original article but a subscription to Flight seems to be necessary in order to see more than the first page.

airscapemag.com/2015/03/02/constellation-crossing/

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

I had no problem downloading more than the first page without a subscription, BTW. I just clicked on the next page in the panel on the left side.

Hope this helps,

[Tom/CalClassic]

PS. The return trip is here:

www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1946/1946%20-%201375.html

[Deleted]

Yes, thanks - I hadn't grasped the use of the left hand panel and am perhaps a little too familiar with sites which give you the first page and then want money. Both articles are fascinating. Out of the Clouds has now arrived and does indeed play on a computer running Windows 8.1 with VLC Media Player. I watched the first 26 minutes this afternoon and can see why it is not regarded as among the great Ealing films; also, I am not yet convinced that it is worth acquiring by those whose main interest is not the central love story, although engine failure on a Stratocruiser is a major factor in the plot. I will report in full tomorrow when I have watched the whole thing,
Ken

[Tom/CalClassic]

Thanks, I'll be looking forward to the full report.

[Deleted]

The date on the opening titles of Out of the Clouds is 1954 and the assistance of BOAC, BEA and Pan Am is acknowledged. A BEA Viscount arrives from Germany bearing a young Jewish woman whose parents died in Auschwitz and who is emigrating to the USA to marry an older American man she had met in Germany and who can offer her the security and standard of living she desires, although she is not in love with him. At the same time the PanAm DC6b Clipper John Alden lands from the USA carrying a young Jewish man who is on his way to settle in Israel. Shots of the two aircraft flying and of the DC6b on the ground. The couple are held in a transit area and over a quick coffee fall in love but must go their separate ways. She boards a BOAC Stratocruiser piloted by James Robertson Justice - who is the sole highlight of a pretty dour business. He regards the Strat he has to fly as a jinx machine. Footage of the engines being started, producing a lot less exhaust than I expected, and of the Strat taking off. We switch to the cockpit - a studio mock-up, almost certainly. The flight engineer reports problems with No. 2 engine, it has to be shut down and they return to Heathrow. Meanwhile dense fog has descended and JRJ carries out a talked down ILS landing. The talker operates in a pretty makeshift looking cabin with red and white vertical stripes on the exterior and what look like radar dishes on the roof. The same procedure is dealt with in the film 'In On the Beam (1951) which shows the same structure, actually a caravan. Apart from views of a car park and a building entrance these are the only clear external shots of airport buildings in the entire film. However, the large central control tower is visible at a distance. Good shots of the ILS instruments showing JRJ what the talker is telling him - you are 30 feet above the glide path, etc - but what we are seeing is an authentic procedure, described in an issue of Flight together with a photograph of the striped structure; and it is the most dramatic part of the film. Once on the ground all flights are cancelled and the lovers go out for the evening in London. He proposes and is turned down. When the fog lifts he departs on a BOAC Constellation for Rome - good shot of it taking off - and then decides that he must return to the USA to find her. When he gets back to London, wonder of wonders (I have restrained my cynicism so far, but there are limits) she is still there, because she has not boarded the rescheduled flight to the USA. The arranged marriage is ditched and they kiss... A sub plot involves a pilot grounded for medical reasons who has become one of the senior administrative staff. Rather interestingly it emerges that it was known in 1954 that there can be a connection between smoking and drinking and hardening of the arteries. Nevertheless, and in common with other films of the period, people smoke their heads off. They made a studio mock up of the internals of the control tower because for obvious reasons they couldn't use the real one. The one simulated is the modern one not the original, because 'views' out of the windows are from a considerable height. Shots of the check in area, with amazingly small check-in desks, may be of the real thing, but other internal sequences look very much as though they are of the buildings in the central part of the airport officially opened by the Queen in 1955. Is it worth sitting through 90 minutes of it? Not in my opinion, but other opinions may differ. The film I linked to at the beginning of this thread is much shorter and in my view more interesting. However, two things struck me in particular. Firstly, the uniform worn by BOAC stewardesses and female ground staff of the period must have been just about the classiest of all time. Secondly, the appearance of the Cal Classic aircraft really is very accurate.
Ken

Postscript. Tom, you may already be familiar with them, but this site has some extremely interesting photographs of Heathrow in the 1950s. According to it, the facilities in the central area only opened in 1955 and so must have been under construction when Out of the Clouds was made. This may partly explain why external views of the buildings do not feature very much. The earlier terminal was to the north of runway 27R 09L and continued in use after 1955 - it does feature in the Cal Classic scenery, of course. It would therefore be possible to produce more than one Cal Classic version of this airport, and one with the original terminal and nothing except construction work in the central area would be fun. He cites the free Flight archive (above) as being very useful on all this, because I guess there were regular updates on what was happening, with photos. One of his photos is a close-up of the original terminal marked Getty Images (not dated, but I think after 1955) and it is good enough to give one a pretty fair stab at replicating it. He says the terminal building is now the location of the Renaissance London Heathrow and if you look at this on the satellite image you can see part of the old apron.


exceptthekylesandwesternisles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/heathrow-in-1950s-60s.html

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

Thanks for the very complete review; disappointing that there are no views of the terminals.

But thanks so much for that link to the Heathrow history site. That shows that the CalClassic Heathrow dates between November 1961 (the opening of the Oceanic Terminal) and spring of 1962 (the closing of the North Terminal).

Thanks again,