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The
charmong riverside pub: The Trout Inn,
Wolvercote
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THE
SAINT filming locations
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CREDITS
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Val
Kilmer is Simon Templar, the master criminal who
has amassed almost $50 million by use of false moustaches
and a string of instantly traceable names; Elizabeth
Shue is Dr Emma Russell, the Oxford professor who,
having solved the worldís fuel problems, carries the
formula in her underwear. So much more fun for Simon
than rummaging through Stephen Hawking's Y-fronts, eh?
While Hitchcock
might have floated this unlikely material effortlessly,
this misfire is sunk by a soggy ballast of cod psychology.
The Saintís London base is the starry Halcyon
Hotel, 81 Holland Park, W11, a discreet hideaway
for Hollywood royalty and visiting rock stars in Holland
Park, West London.
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'Simon
Templar's London hotel: The Halcyon, Holland
Park
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Dr Russell works out of Queenís
College, High Street, Oxford; to seduce her,
Templar poses opposite the white marble Shelley
Memorial in University
College, High Street. The statue, designed
by Edward Onslow Ford, was intended for Shelleyís grave
in the English Cemetery, Rome, but proved too large
and was presented to the college by Shelleyís widow
in 1894. See it in the domed chamber reached by a passageway
in the northwest corner of the quad.
The Oxford pub where Russell gets all soppy with ëSt
Thomas Moreí is the Trout Inn,
a beautiful riverside pub (where TVís Inspector Morse
downed the occasional pint) at 195
Godstow Road, Lower Wolvercote, about three
miles northwest of the city (tel:01865.554485).
ëBerlin Templehof Airportí is actually Westminsterís
New Royal Horticultural Hall,
on the corner of Greycoat and
Elverton Streets in Westminster, SW1 (it
was a berlin airport, too, in
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).
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'Berlin
Templehof': New Royal Horticutural Hall, Westminster,
London
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The real exotic location filming is in Moscowís
Red Square, where
Templar escapes from the first chase, and looking stunning
illuminated at night for the would-be miraculous climax.
The Moscow hotel is the 1956 ëStalin Gothicí-style Peking
Hotel, 1/5 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street (tel:
095.209.2215). Filming in Moscow also took place
at the Foreign Affairs Ministry
building; at the
Aerostar Hotel and at Leningrad
Station.
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Simon
Templar escapes:
Moscow's Red Square
Photograph: Steen Mangen
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Interiors, though, are London again. ëTretiak Oil &
Gas Industries Moscow HQí, where the billionaire oil
magnate stages his televised press conference, is the
Draperís Hall, Throgmorton Street, EC2 in
the City of London. It became a Russian interior again
for Goldeneye.
The hall isnít generally open to the public.
The ëRussianí hotel lobby, where Russell catches up
with Templar (not too hard a task, since all his aliases
are the names of Catholic saints), is the Renaissance
London Chancery Court Hotel, 252 High Holborn (tel:
020.7829.9888), housed in the magnificent old Pearl
Assurance Building, seen also in the 1995 Richard
III with Ian
McKellen and in the Merchant-Ivory
production
Howards End.
The finale, with Dr Russell revealing her secret to
the world, is supposedly in Oxfordís Sheldonian
Theatre. The exterior is real enough, with
Templar chased out past the Clarendon
Building into Catte
Street. The Sheldonian, surprisingly, stood
in for 'Harvard' in Michael
Cimino's epic Western Heaven's
Gate.
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Dr
Russell reveals her secret to the world: The
Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
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Scenes were also shot at Harrow
School, Middlesex
(which provided Hogwarts classrooms for Harry
Potter and the Phiilosopher's Stone); and at
Fort Amhurst, Chatham,
Kent.
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FILMING
LOCATIONS FOR THE SAINT
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CHECK
OUT
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Halcyon
Hotel, 81 Holland Park, W11 (tel: 0207.727.7288)
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