Top Secret (1952)

Date: 1952
Director: Mario Zampi
Production Company: Mario Zampi Productions, Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC)

Stars: Oskar Homolka, Nadia Gray, George Cole
Location(s): Paris, Surrey

Region(s): ,

Storyline:

A sanitation engineer is mistaken for an international spy when he inadvertently takes a set of plans for a new secret weapon on holiday.

Additional Information:

Screen captures by Phil Wilkinson

Also known as ‘Mr. Potts Goes to Moscow’ (US Title)

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If you have any information regarding this production, the locations or, even better, some comparison shots please contact us. Images submitted must be in Landscape orientation, as would be seen on the cinema screen, not Portrait.

We are aware that there are films on the site that were added when the criteria for the inclusion of locations was very different from today and, as a result, there may be scenes missing from some productions. Please do not forward additional screen captures to us but bring the detail to our attention, for we do, and are, 're-addressing' these older entries as time allows.

  • Capture 1
  • 'Now' required

The Rolls Royce carrying Sir Hubert Wells is escorted to by Major Pike (Geoffrey Sumner) to Barworth, the facility where Professor Layton has been working on a top secret weapon.

  • Capture 2
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After the Professor suffers a heart attack and his document case is accidentally swapped with one belonging to sanitary engineer George Potts, Pike is accompanied to Downing Street to show the weapon's plans to the Prime Minister. The surprising location accuracy of this film is brought to our attention by Dave W who places this as the North Block of what is now The Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office. (RL)

  • Capture 3
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The camera pans with the trio across Downing Street. A likely "I never knew that" for many of us, for Dave W tells us that the visible entrance is that of No 12 Downing Street. The current doorway is of a different shape but it was certainly like the Capture back in 1920 - LPA134236. (RL)

  • Capture 4
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Stepping up to the door of number 10, the Major rings the doorbell.

  • Capture 5
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Seeing a British newspaper headline that Potts is wanted for stealing the plans for Project Cataclysm, undercover agent Gaston rides to Paris after recognising George in the Normandy café where he works. The Eiffel Tower on Avenue Anatole France in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.

  • Capture 6
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The Agent from Cell KZ23 approaches the Russian Embassy.

  • Capture 7
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Leaving his motorcycle at the kerb, Gaston enters the building where he reports to Zekov.

  • Capture 8
  • 24 Jun 2023

Following a meeting with Potts in northern France, Zekov takes the wanted man to Moscow with a promise of employment. Croydon Airport on Purley Way in Croydon, Surrey with the Control Tower and Terminal Building in the background.

John Harwood visited the ex-airport. (SJ)

  • Capture 9
  • 27 Jun 2023

Welcomed by Minister Rakov (Frederick Valk), George Potts (George Cole) is escorted from the plane by Zekov (Oskar Homolka) and taken to the Moscow Kremlin. Croydon Airport was used in 1938's Climbing High' as well as ‘The Lost Hours’ and ‘Wings of Danger’, both made in 1952, and was closed in the autumn of 1959.

John returned for an improved angle and found a moodier sky. SJ

  • Capture 10
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The alert is raised when Potts disappears after making arrangements for Project Cataclysm's plans to be smuggled out of the country.

  • Capture 11
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Trains are stopped and searched before Potts is found in the Kremlin and taken to Joseph Stalin. Although the capture is not of the best quality, Manuel Gurtner tells us that "Of course, this is not in the Soviet Union, but appears to have been filmed at Liss Forest Road station on the Longmoor Military Railway in Hampshire using LMR No. 700 "Major General Carl R. Gray Jnr". For this scene the USATC S160 class 2-8-0 tender loco, built by Alco in 1944 and scraped in 1957, was dressed as a Russian class ShA."

  • Capture 12
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In West Berlin, Zekov escorts Potts to the border between the Russian and British sectors where an exchange of secret plans is to take place.

  • Capture 13
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After his method of smuggling the plans out of Russia are revealed, George is caught by Soviet Troops before making a run for it.

  • Capture 14
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Zekov and his Agents look up to see George as he escapes across the rooftops into the American sector.