1930s comedy crime caper features Bradford railway locations
Bradford’s railway line and station provided the locations for an exciting – if somewhat surreal – sequence in A Fire Has Been Arranged, a 1935 film directed by Leslie S Hiscott and starring Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Alastair Sim, Hal Walters, Robb Wilton and Mary Lawson.
You can find the whole story at www.reelstreets.com but in essence the zany comedy concerns a trio of crooks who rob a jewellers’ and bury the loot in a field before being caught. However, when they return to the scene after a 10-year prison stretch, they find that a department store has been built on the land. The store is not prospering, and our ‘heroes’ are recruited by the dodgy owners to burn the building down so they can claim the insurance. Things then begin to go even more awry, as shown by the sequence of stills below.
Hurrying to stop Hal from setting the fire, Bud and Ches get trapped on a level crossing (captioned on ReelStreets as: Greenland Mill level crossing on Bridge Street in Bradford on Avon, Somerset, with Greenland Mills in the left distance).
Bud and Ches enter a tunnel followed by the express (captioned as: The eastern portal of Bradford Tunnel adjacent to Greenland Mill level crossing).
With the bodywork stripped away by the train while passing through the tunnel, Bud and Ches arrive at a station (captioned as: Bradford on Avon station on Station Approach off St Margaret’s Street in Bradford on Avon, Somerset).
After leaving Bradford, the pair find themselves on a race track – in real life, the Brooklands Motor Circuit near Byfleet in Surrey, still clearly visible from the train for anyone travelling from Bradford to London Waterloo.
Many thanks to John Potter and Peter Mann for bringing this splendid set of photos to our attention.
