Appointment In London – Channel Four Now

Thnaks for that 682al. I suppose what flagged it up was the upper surfrace camouflage looking a little pale and ‘sandy’ in nature but the thing which really caught my eye was the pale coloured spinners, an obvious feature on the Dambuster’s film aircraft. For Dambuster’s, they were pulled of out storage from an MU at RAF Hemswell.

I know what you mean about the ‘weathering’ effect. I thought it look as though someone had gone bonkers with the Nitromors – not disinilar to a friends rally car I was helping to build a few years ago. We thought we’d do it ourselves (because we’re Yorkshiremen and therefore, aledgedy ‘tight with cash’) and wound up nearly gasing the neighbours! In fact, Newark Air Museum’s Bucaneer looks like it too!

I haven’t got all the details to hand but, yes, some of the Lancasters appeared in both films.

What struck me about the one used for most of the close-ups in APIL was the dreadful attempt to make it look “weary”. It looks as though it has been hosed all over with watered down distemper which has then been allowed to dry out, leaving streaks all over it.

Most peculiar!

I missed the first ten minutes so therfore missed TW862. The only obvious serial I saw was NX782. With regards to the Squadron codes the usually authritative Bower & Rawlins’ Squadron Codes notes that the letter combination ‘IH’ (those seen in the film), were never (knowlingly) allocated. The squadron, No. 188 DID exist, but only for a short time in WW1 as night fighter training unit at Throwley, Kent. It only lasted between December 1917 to March 1919 and used 504K’s, Sopwith Camels and Sopwith Pups. After disbandment in 1919, it never reformed.

One thing which did strike me was the similarity, in camouflage at least, to the Lancs used in the Dambusters, which appeared just over a year after Appointment in London – are they the same aircraft, pulled out of storage for both productions? Does anyone have the serials for the Dambuster’s Lancasters? From what I understand, the only one of those aircraft to carry a ‘correct’ serial was the one used to portray Gibson’s aircraft; all the rest retained their own serials. Just curious!

Amazon is your friend:

Appointment in London

The Lancaster’s used were NX673 NX679 NX782

Not to mention TW862 which appears in the opening sequence as the Wingco gets back from his 89th Op with a wounded rear gunner.

(Fortunately, though, he happens to have taken a U.S.A.A.F. Officer along with him and he takes over as rear gunner and shoots down the JU88 – yeah, really)

Trivia for Appointment in London (1952)
According to Dirk Bogarde, the character of Tim Mason was based on Wing Commander Guy Gibson who led the Dambusters raid in May 1943. Gibson was at one stage the commanding officer of 106 squadron and one of the flight commanders was Squadron Leader John Wooldridge, co-writer and composer for “Appointment in London”.

The movie was filmed at RAF Upwood. The Lancaster’s used were NX673 NX679 NX782 These aircraft also took part in the filming of _Dambusters, The (1954)_ two years later…..

Taken from IMDb

I believe alot of the filming was done at Upwood and involved the use of the Lincolns that were based there for some of the scenes. My late father, a pilot there at the time was one of several station personel used as extras. He appeared in one scene in full flying kit, giving a gloved thumbs up to the camera (for about 2 seconds!), if I remember correctly. Unfortunately I appear to have missed it again!

Good call! I didn’t know that was on and I haven’t seen it in ages. Worth 90 or so minutes of anyones time. Not too many 1950’s ‘special effects’ either, prbably due to the amount of genuine archive footage used. It was a bit slow in places but luckily didn’t go all melodramatic. Very enjoyable.