Beckton Gas Works As A Film Location
The gasworks, Products Works and Alps were used as a location for TV and cinema filming on a number of occasions. In the 1960s comedy films and TV programmes, such as Michael Bentine’s It's a Square World were shot here. The mounds of chemical waste were used to portray mountaineering scenes. In 1975 the film Brannigan starring John Wayne used the location. The opening sequence of the 1981 James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only was filmed here. The scenes involved Roger Moore as James Bond attempting to regain control of a helicopter operated by remote control by his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The gasworks buildings were also used in a number of scenes representing a dystopian 1984 London in the 1984 film version of the George Orwell's story of Nineteen Eighty-four. In 1986, the film Biggles: Adventures in Time used the gas works as a location for a weapon testing ground.
In the final hour or so of Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick's 1987 movie portraying the Vietnam War, Matthew Modine (Private Joker), Adam Baldwin (Animal Mother) and their platoon go into Huế, a Vietnamese city, to clear it of Viet Cong and snipers. Kubrick had the whole gasworks selectively demolished and then the art department dressed the 'set' with latticework and appropriate advertising hoardings to make it believable. At one point the soldiers enter a building to flush out a sniper. This building was one of several, located between the central buildings of the old gas works and about 200 yards from the river Thames. The final scene sees the soldiers marching off into the (London) sunset against the silhouettes of the burning old gas works' smoke stacks and buildings, singing the Mickey Mouse march music. In the film a period of several days takes place in the protagonist's lives as they travel through the industrial quarters of Huế city; in reality the action took place within just one square mile.
British pop/rock trio The Outfield filmed multiple sequences for the video to the band's 1987 hit "Since You've Been Gone", from their album Bangin', at the Beckton Gas Works.
The video for Loop's 1990 single Arc-lite was filmed on the set of Full Metal Jacket. The gasworks was used as the main background scene for the Oasis video D'You Know What I Mean?, as it shows the band members playing on a concrete slab within the gasworks facility. The videoclip for Marcella Detroit's 1994 single I Believe was shot in this location. Also, the 1995 TV series Bugs episode Out Of The Hive shows the whole facility at a scene where a car drives off an unfinished bridge in flames.
Derek Jarman's 1986 promotional video for The Smiths 'The Queen is Dead' single was partly shot at Beckton Gasworks.
Part of the 1985 Max Headroom TV Movie 20 Minutes into the future was shot at Beckton Gasworks.
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Famous quotes containing the words gas, works and/or film:
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—Bill Cosby (20th century)
“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast
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Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm VIII (l. VIII, 5–6)
“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)