Location, Location, Location – Part 1
Egham High Street has been home to two cinemas.
The Gem Cinema opened in 1910 in a new building between 167 High Street and a private house, Aubrey Haw. It took its unusual name from the fact that its owner, Mr F.S. Powell, was by trade a diamond cutter. It closed in the late 1920s and the building was later used for car sales. It was finally demolished in 1982 to make way for shops and offices.
The Bohemia Cinema opened in 1922 at 153 High Street, seating 450 patrons. It installed sound equipment in 1928 for the new talking films. The Bohemia closed for refurbishment in summer 1932, reopening a year later as the Savoy. The last film shown before the cinema closed in 1959 was a suspense thriller starring Dirk Bogarde: Cast a Dark Shadow. The building was demolished in 1966 for the new precinct.
From 1924 until the closure of the Gem, both cinemas were run by Mr Sidney Stotesbury.
The new Gateway West development will bring film back to Egham, in the form of a four-screen Everyman cinema.
Egham High Street looking east from the showing The Gem.
Image Credit: Egham Museum P1110
South Side of Egham High Street looking west c.1960. W.G Batten & Co was where the Savoy Cinema one stood.
Image Credit: Egham Museum P41
Under the Greenwood Tree (1929)
Image Credit www.themoviedb.org
Film set at Virginia Water, summer 2019
Image Credit: Twitter
For over 90 years the area around Egham, Egham Hythe, Englefield Green, Thorpe and Virginia Water has offered film-makers the perfect combination of natural scenery, majestic buildings and ease of access from both airports and studios, such as Shepperton and Longcross. Actors, producers and playwrights have found it a convenient and pleasant place to live.
Films have been shot here since 1929 when the first British all-talking film Under the Greenwood Tree included scenes in St Mary’s Church Thorpe, right up to 2019 with Royal Holloway providing an impressive backdrop for Born a King.
TV crews are also much in evidence, not only for drama programmes but also documentaries and, of course, Royal Holloway media students make their own films here.
In June 2019 a film crew were spotted filming on a specially constructed set near the Leptis Magna Ruins – scenes for a new version of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, which was released in October 2020.
Historic Buildings
Image Credit www.reelstreets.com
Image Credit Seth Cooper, (CC-BY-SA) www.downtonabbey.fandom
Film-makers love Royal Holloway, University of London. It features as itself in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) when astrophysicist Dr Erik Selvig is consulted by Thor and in Delirium (2017) which focuses on the struggles of a composer to write a requiem.
It also plays other colleges and schools – Devington School in Murder on St Malley’s Day for Midsomer Murders (2002), Bridgwater University Trinity College in Trinity (2009) and Williamsport Military Training College in Salt & Pepper (1968), starring Sammy Davis Jr.
Sometimes it is a hospital – the Psychiatric Institute in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction (2006) and the nursing home in which Ruth Wilcox dies in Howards’ End (1992). The London Season, an episode of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2013) used the Picture Gallery as the Royal Academy summer exhibition, and two boardrooms in Founder’s were transformed into a 1920’s apartment. It even appeared in a Bollywood film, Judwaa 2 (2017).
The former Runnymede Campus of Brunel University (now Audley Luxury Retirement Village) has been a school in A French Mistress (1960) and in Ian Dury’s biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2009) where it was also a gig venue. It was a private hospital – in The Sicilian Defence, Midsomer Murders (ITV, 2013), and, disused, in Lewis’ Falling Darkness, (ITV, 2010). For Downton Abbey (ITV, 2011) it acted as Ripon’s Registry office where Anna and John Bates marry in secret, and it was scene of a grisly murder in Luther (BBC, 2010). It also provided the background for a music video for Nero’s Crush on You (2011).
Luxurious Housing and Leisure
In 1957 Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller stayed in Parkside House, Englefield Green, while she was filming in London. Scenes were shot there for My Week with Marilyn (2011).
Great Fosters has frequently starred as the home of the wealthy – a financier in You Pay Your Money (1957), first-class passengers on the Titanic in A Night to Remember (1958), and as a New York mansion belonging to an American gangster in Surprise Package (1960). It also represented Chiselbury School in the title sequence of the BBC comedy Whacko (1956-1960, 1971-1972).
Mansions on the Wentworth Estate featured in The Iron Lady (2011), The Split (BBC, 2018), and for a gruesome murder in Silent Witness (BBC, 2018).
Peter Cushing’s character, Emmanuel Hildern, lived in Thorpe House, Coldharbour Lane, in The Creeping Flesh (1973) and Redwood in Norland Lane was used for Selected Target, an episode of The Sweeney (ITV, 1976).
In 2018 Egham’s White Lion pub confused visitors when it was renamed ‘The Seven Swans’ for Romesh Ranganathan’s Sky One series The Reluctant Landlord.
Another pub, the Rose and Crown at Thorpe Green, received a visit from Flash Harry in The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966).
Since 2009 Thorpe Park has included Saw – The Ride, the first rollercoaster themed to a film franchise.
A different ride, NeMesis Inferno, featured in The Inbetweeners (E4/Channel 4, 2008). And for TV series Primeval (2008), a Smilodon rampaged Thorpe Park, rechristened Blue Sky Amusement Park.