Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain, London is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom, as well as the most populous municipality in the European Union. London is a leading global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism, and transportation. London’s familiar landmarks such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the Thames River, the London Eye and the city’s twisty streets have lured filmmakers there for years. Throughout history, London, being the inherently cinematic city it is, has been used frequently both as a filming location and a film setting for many movies and television programs over the years.
London has played a dominant role in the film industry and because of that role, the number of British films set in London grows every day. Its status has warranted it to be used many times in American and Bollywood films, and is often recreated on many studio backlots. The depictions of the City of London have ranged from historical recreations of Victorian era London with the adaptations of Charles Dickens and Sherlock Holmes, to popular romantic comedies like Notting Hill (1999) and Love Actually (2003). The city has also its share of crime films like Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998), spy thrillers such as Casino Royale (2006), as well as science fiction and the “swinging London” films of the 1960s.
London is a world cultural capital and in a city as big as London, it would simply be a missed opportunity to leave a hub like Kings Cross and St. Pancras Station underused on the big and small screens. Kings Cross is an area in central London that is home to both St. Pancras Station and Kings Cross Station. King’s Cross Station is one of the most well-connected locations in London, and was built as the London hub for the railway. The architectural plan for the station in its location today were first made in the early 19th century under the direction of an architect named George Turnbull, and the station opened with two platforms in 1852. The first temporary passenger station opened in two years earlier, and Among the passengers was Queen Victoria I who travelled to Scotland from London in 1851. Overall, it is a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic Architecture and one of the most highly regarded stations in the world, and for or many centuries, the station and the area has played host to a myriad of individuals. Throughout history, this area has continually been depicted on film. These depictions have shown how this area has continually developed and redeveloped throughout the years. In The Ladykillers (1955), High Hopes (1988), and Somers Town (2008) the films show how ultimately these depictions have accurately reflected the changing face of the area, and moreover, the changing face of London.
Britain in 1950 was different, in many ways, from Britain today. The most obvious difference was in the physical fabric of the country. By 1950, the legacy of the Second World War was still everywhere to be seen. In the major cities, and particularly in London, there were vacant bomb-sites, unrepaired houses, temporary prefabs and gardens turned into allotments. The Ealing Studios’ comedies of the 1940s and 1950s took full use of locations throughout the city that were set in the ruins and bombing sites of Post- World War II London. After World War II the area declined from being a poor but busy industrial and distribution services district to a partially abandoned post-industrial district. In 1955 when The Ladykillers was released, Ealing Studios used Kings Cross Station and its surrounding area as the backdrop to for the film. The station, its surrounding streets and most importantly the railway are overtly featured in The Ladykillers. In the story, a gang robs a security van near the station and Mrs. Wilberforce, an elderly widow in a house subsiding lopsided house, built over the entrance to a railway tunnel in Kings Cross, London, unwittingly assists them in moving the proceeds through the station. Members of the gang fall out with each other and one by one they all fall or are dropped into passing goods wagons from the parapet of the Copenhagen Tunnel a mile to the north of the station.
After World War II, the station’s role as a transport hub ultimately led to its neglect when freight transport declined during the war and by the 20th century. The area declined from being a poor but busy industrial and distribution services district to a partially abandoned post-industrial district. By the 1980s it was notorious for prostitution and drug abuse. Today, opposite St. Pancras’ brand new entrances, visible are the remnants of the Stanley Buildings, these were 19th century block of flats that were built for railway workers centuries ago, but by the 1980s the area had seen serious neglect. By then area had become an under used site that was notorious for drug use and prostitution. These problems discouraged people from settling in the buildings or even visiting the area. The film High Hopes, was filmed around Culross and Stanley buildings, two Victorian tenement blocks behind the station managed by Shortlife Community Housing, which rented out flats on a temporary basis to mainly young people during the 1970s and 1980s. The film tells the story of a disenchanted bike courier, his girlfriend, and his elderly mum who are facing up to a changing city. From its opening scenes of a passenger emerging from the station’s old subway steps, the film seemed to sum up the spirit of those times. Its main protagonists are Cyril and Shirley that Cyril’s father worked on the railways. Cyril’s mum lives nearby in a street of Victorian town houses that is slowly being gentrified and he hates the way the area has changed from the his childhood. From their hatred of Maggie Thatcher to their wacky top floor pad that appears to have been furnished from a junk shop. Mike Leigh’s High Hopes showed that lives were lived here. People had homes, jobs. They did things. There was a nature reserve, formed out of wasteland. The area had a reputation, sometimes exaggerated but nonetheless based in reality, for prostitution and drugs.
High Hopes came out in 1988 but today other than the remnants, the familiar landmarks featured in the film have disappeared. Only a few years after the film’s release that the government began the London King’s Cross Partnership to fund regeneration projects to clean up the area as part of regeneration projects in the 1990s. Tenants like Cyril and Shirley who lived in the Stanley and Culross buildings were forced out in the early 21st century, as work to redevelop St. Pancras into an international station began. By then Kings Cross had become home to new British cultural establishments such as the London Canal Museum and the British Library. This renewal was one of the largest projects in London in the 21st century. These establishments were the catalyst for the rebirth of the Kings Cross area and the beginning of a changed perception of the area as it is seen today. Within years, the gentrification process had sent away much of the “low life” behavior that had went on in the area, and new projects such as offices and hotels had begun to open. The area has increasingly become home to cultural establishments.
The changing face of Kings Cross during the early 21st century was depicted in the 2008 Shane Meadows film, Somers Town. Meadow’s coming-of-age film tells the story of urban life in London and friendship set in the streets of Somers Town near the King’s Cross Station. Somers Town is a district in north west London with the neighborhood being strongly influenced by the three London railways Euston, St. Pancras, and Kings Cross stations. Somers Town for the past 200 years has been filled predominantly by 20th century social housing blocks, the highest concentration of council estates in the country. This makes Somers Town a very topical setting for a film. We are introduced to the area at the time when the film first opens on the arrival of Tommo, who is a young boy from Nottingham who arrives in King’s Cross. Upon his arrival, he gets mugged and loses his money and bags, but he manages to meet another boy named Marek, who is a Polish teenager being raised by his father that is a construction worker working on the rebuilding of St. Pancras station. We can tell throughout the film that the characters are resisting the gentrification of the area that is ultimately closing in on them. But the “slice of life” Meadow’s film depicts is actually not as organic as it may seem. The film, was initially commissioned by the train company Eurostar as a 20-minute short to publicize the new high speed London to Paris railway connection. Somers Town was released right after the construction work along Somers Town was completed in 2008 to allow the Eurostar trains to arrive at St Pancras Station, and the film ends with the boys using the train to go the Paris.
Since then St. Pancras and the Kings Cross area has undergone many social and economic transformations in recent times, partly because of the Eurostar link Tommo and Marek used. Today, more than 50 million commuters come through the station annually. Though many commuters pass through Kings Cross and its surrounding area regularly as transitory encounters, the station gives visitors who travel from all over the world and from the rest of the United Kingdom, a strong first impression of what the City of London has to offer.