The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934
Director
Cast
visit the film locations
London: Flights: Heathrow Airport; Gatwick Airport
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, South Kensington (box office: 020.7589.8212)
Trivia
The Royal Albert Hall is also used for the climax of the glossy 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much.
The Man Who Knew Too Much location: the wordless climax at the concert: Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London
Leslie Banks and Edna Best track down their kidnapped child in this early Hitchcock thriller, made mostly in the studio as was the custom at the time.
The opening scenes are set in a very stagey faux 'St Moritz', with a few stock shots of Alpine skiers, but the action soon moves to London.
The atmospheric Wapping scenes were filmed on a huge set, though there's a shot of the real Tower Bridge, when it was still surrounded by working docks and cranes. The attempt to assassinate the European diplomat was set, like the more famous remake, in the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, South Kensington – though for practical reasons, the interior was recreated in the old Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, west London.
One of London's great film studios, the Gaumont-British Lime Grove Studios were also used by Hitchcock to film The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Many of the Gainsborough costume melodramas, including The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady, were filmed here, along with the classic Jessie Matthews musical Evergreen.
In 1949, the studio, failing after being taken over by the Rank Organisation, was sold to the BBC TV to become television studios. The huge white complex, built in 1932, which stood on the west side of Lime Grove, W12, was finally demolished in the Nineties and the site is now a housing estate.
Only street names, such as Gaumont Terrace and Gainsborough Court, recall that, for many years, this was the home of classic British cinema.
