Reel Places
Fifth Element (1997)
This futuristic Luc Besson movie sees Bruce Willis’ taxi driver character at the centre of a desperate ploy to save the world from an unknown evil. Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House doubled as the Fhloston Paradise Opera House in the film – look out for the scene where the blue alien diva performs.
Match Point (2005)
This not-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be Woody Allen-directed dark love story was filmed entirely in England, with many scenes set in London. Watch the attraction develop between Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson as they meet at the Covent Garden Hotel’s Brasserie Max. They also later visit the Royal Opera House.
Closer (2004)
Patrick Marber’s tale of dangerous liasons features several scenes shot at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Designed in 1812 by Benjamin Wyatt it’s the oldest theatre in the world still in use and boasts six bars including the Grand Saloon which features in the film. Also shot here was Derek Jarman’s Jubilee and 1989 comedy The Tall Guy, starring Jeff Goldblum.
Frenzy (1972)
Hitchcock’s penultimate film was a grisly affair, as a serial killer stalked London murdering women with a necktie. Although not his best work, the movie serves as an invaluable record of its setting, Covent Garden’s old fruit and vegetable market. In 1973, the whole operation moved south of the River to the rather less picturesque environs of Nine Elms in Vauxhall, with the original Market Building becoming the cafés and shopping experience you now see in the main Piazza. You can still see many of the locations featured though, such as the revamped Globe pub on Bow Street, from which Blaney (Jon Finch) was sacked from his bar job by nasty landlord Felix Forsythe (Bernard Bribbins). Another Covent Garden pub, Nell of Drury Lane, opposite the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and one of the oldest pubs in the area is also used in a scene.
Layer Cake (2004)
This genuinely watchable London gangster movie, starring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, straddles a number of London locations, but viewers will undoubtedly recall the scene when he tries to seduce Sienna Miller’s character Tammy in the swanky setting of Covent Garden’s St Martins Lane Hotel. Frustratingly for him, he’s abducted in a luggage trolley before he can get down to it.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Richard Curtis’s best film made Britain look like the quaint and lovely spot that tourists always imagine it to be. The restaurant where Carrie recounts her sexual conquests was the Dome Café in Covent Garden’s Wellington Street, which is now a Café Rouge.
Victim (1961)
This Dirk Bogarde film is famous as being one of the first movies to examine the issue of homosexuality, and The Salisbury pub, a wonderfully ornate Edwardian boozer on St Martins Lane, is used as a focal point for the film’s gay community.
The Great ‘My Fair Lady’ Myth
Despite the general assumption that My Fair Lady (1964) was shot in Covent Garden, the entire movie was actually filmed at the Warner Bros soundstages in Burbank. Yes, even the Ascot scene, which saw real horses galloping across the film studio. However, there is a remake planned for 2009 or 2010, with Kiera Knightly playing Eliza Doolittle, so Covent Garden could well be the location of choice for this latest incarnation.
For more information on film locations across the capital, go to http://www.visitlondon.com/maps/movie_maps/
