The Man Who Knew Too Much

The black shine of a pistol barrel pokes out from behind red velvet curtains at the Royal Albert Hall. A visiting royal is to be shot at the precise moment a cymbal crashes during the performance of a Bernard Herman oratorio. The McKennas, played by James Stewart and Doris Day, have blundered onto the plan, trying to rescue their son from the would-be assassins.

Doris Day spots the gun barrel and sees its target. She screams a moment before the cymbal crash. Startled, the assassin misses, and is himself killed—he falls to his death—when the police rush into the box he’d occupied with his near-sighted accomplice who’d been following the score.

The other morning I was thrilled to visit the Albert Hall and see I saw where this all happened.  Why not, I reckoned, look for the rest of the London locations for the Hitchcock film.  First, the taxidermist shop said in the film to be at 61 Burdette Street.  There is no Burdette Street, but an actual taxidermist shop at 61 College Street was used.  I went there.  Torn down, replaced by an apartment block.  Next the Anglican church which in the film is located in Bayswater on Ambrose Street.  No Ambrose Street, but an actual church was used.  I went there--the church is in Brixton, not Bayswater.  Torn down. 

But this weekend I'll view an early Hitchcock film, The Lodger, outdoors near where much of it was shot in the 1930s.

Unless KLM puts me on a flight by then to replace the one they cancelled because of the ash.