Repulsion | 1965
- Locations |
- London
- DIRECTOR |
- Roman Polanski
Set in a bleakly grey London, Roman Polanski’s brilliant, cold and terrifying case history sees sexually repressed and mystifyingly psychotic Carole Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve) killing off predatory males, while well-heeled South Kensington has never appeared so unsettling.
The supporting cast contains some of the finest British character actors of the period, now probably best remembered for TV roles. Oily landlord Patrick Wymark shot to fame in boardroom drama The Planemakers, while Ian Hendry starred in the largely forgotten, pre-camp first series of The Avengers – when it began life as a relatively straightforward thriller series.
They both appeared onscreen in cult movies. Wymark went on to play Oliver Cromwell in Michael Reeves' classic Witchfinder General (The Conqueror Worm), while Hendry became the good guy in another British Vincent Price movie, Theatre of Blood, and the bad guy in the classic Get Carter.
Repulsion is famously set around London's prestigious South Kensington district, SW7. The pretty vacant, and increasingly distracted, Carole works as a beautician at ‘Madame Denise’s beauty parlour’. For decades, it remained almost unchanged as a beauty parlour but now it's, 1897 Barbershop, 31 Thurloe Place, South Kensington, SW1.
Still thriving, too, a couple of doors away is the Hoop and Toy, 34 Thurloe Place, the pub where wannabe-boyfriend Colin (John Fraser) drinks with his appalling cronies.
He takes Carole for fish and chips at Dino’s, an Italian restaurant which stood at 1 Pelham Street, alongside South Kensington tube station. After remaining virtually unchanged for nearly 50 years, Dino’s too finally succumbed to updating and now lives on as smart East Mediterranean restaurant Brother Marcus.
Just opposite the tube station entrance, Carole is hassled by roadmender Mike Pratt (another TV stalwart, star of the original Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)) working on the now-gone traffic island as she distractedly crosses Old Brompton Road.
The other traffic island, where Carole sits on the bench and becomes fixated on a crack in the pavement, stood at the junction of Thurloe Place and Exhibition Road (near the beauty parlour). It's also been removed.
Carole's wanderings see her blankly crossing Hammersmith Bridge, West London W6, past the Old City Arms pub, which is still thriving sixty years later. The suspension bridge has been closed to traffic since 2019 when cracks were discovered, which is why its ornamental pedestals are currently covered for major repairs.
She doesn't even register the site of a car accident she passes on Hammersmith Bridge Road. By the way, the apartment block behind her is Digby Mansions – home to Gloria Grahame in 1956's The Man Who Never Was and to theatre critic Michael Hordern in Theatre of Blood.
Less well-known, though, is Carole’s gloomy apartment block (though the incredible expanding interior was reproduced in the studio at Twickenham).
Despite appearances, it's not in South Kensington at all, but a couple of tube stops west in bedsitland, Earl's Court. It's Kensington Mansions, Trebovir Road, off Warwick Road behind Earls Court tube station, SW5.
