There’s something fascinating about tracking down movie locations. Seeing the places where films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, A Hard Day’s Night, Alfie and The Long Good Friday were made just adds to the reality of them, rather than taking away from it. We’ve all pointed at the screen and said ‘Look, that’s the pub we went to last month!’ Stream it over at 123 Movie for free.
It’s probably the closest most of us will get to movie stars like Hugh Grant, Michael Caine, Renee Zellweger, Julia Roberts and Bill Murray. All these movie stars and all these film locations are thoroughly covered in what must be the definitive guide to London’s movie locations: Location London by Mark Adams.
Location London is 176 packed pages of film facts and movie trivia. It’s filled with film stills and original photos, so you can see exactly where the Beatles filmed A Hard Day’s Night, or where Stanley Kubrick made Eyes Wide Shut. A Harry Potter fan? Three Harry Potter films have scenes shot in London, and author Mark Adams tells you where – and not just Platform Nine and three-quarters at King’s Cross station either. (In fact it was filmed on Platform 4, though a plaque now marks where Platform Nine and three-quarters ought to be.).
Each chapter in Location London deals with a London district, with very comprehensive maps at the start of each chapter marking which films were shot where. From Shakespeare to Ali G, Noel Coward to Mick Jagger: they’re all there. At the end of the book are smaller sections dealing with Commemorative Plaques; Pubs, Bars, Restaurants and Hotels (in case you want to drink where the Beatles or Bridget Jones drank); Bollywood in London; and a section the films where London pretended to be some other place, like Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket or Berlin Airport in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
All the information has been unearthed by the movie-mad author, Mark Adams. As a film journalist who was a former Head of Programming for the National Film Theatre, and the Deputy Director of the London Film Festival, he knows his stuff. It shows. He’s also written a guide to the movie locations of Britain and Ireland. But Location London is the only guide movie fans will need when visiting London.
