Buses on Screen - Films Am-Az

The Amazing Transparent Man (1960, Douglas Kennedy)

Several US transit buses feature in a bank robbery scene (thanks Carlos Wallberg)

American Beauty (1999, Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening)

Has a scene set against a backdrop of parked Crown Super Coach school buses.

An American Werewolf in London (1981, David Naughton, Jenny Agutter)

A London Transport AEC Regent III RT is involved in a crash in Piccadilly Circus (thanks Kevin McGowan); note that by the time this was filmed the RT class had been retired from service in London.
Leon Daniels notes ".....we actually had two RTs, one for the famous crash sequence and another one which was part of the 24 car pile up on the approach roads, filmed overnight Saturday night Sunday morning. A close run thing it was too - the sky was getting distinctly dark blue as the famous crash scene (which we did TWICE by the way) was filmed."

RT1677 (KXW323) is seen in the main sequence, on route 38. "By then it had white roundels and appears in the film in a few 'passing' shots. The skid and crash was achieved with balding rear tyres and some speed - made more difficult since the approach was from Lower Regent Street which is uphill! The whole crash sequence was masterminded by Dave Bickers (the former motorcycle scrambling champion of the 1960s, latterly Bickers of Coddenham the coach firm, and Bickers Action Enterprises the film and tv stunt organisation).
....Colleague Tim Hornby and I drove the buses together with, as I recall, Vic Armstrong. Some of the close up impacts, and the passenger coming out of the upper deck window, were done at Brooklands, if I recall correctly." (thanks Leon Daniels)

The second RT may have been RT196 (HLW183); RT1677 also appears briefly in a daylight scene in Trafalgar Square. More prosaically there are appearances by then current London Transport buses, a DMS Daimler Fleetline and another behind an RML Routemaster:

This RML appears on route 14, and RM972 is also seen on route 55:

The Amorous Prawn (1962, Ian Carmichael, Joan Greenwood)

Jon Price notes "good shots of an Alexander Bluebird centre entrance Alexander bodied coach CMS 374 (?) arriving in Oban." This would be a Leyland Royal Tiger.

Amsterdam Affair (1968, William Marlowe, Catherine Schell)

Scenes of Amsterdam and its trams (+Colin Read)

Ana(?)

"Argentine movie of the 1960s includes a long scene taken on a Buenos Aires avenue with many trams and buses passing." (thanks Carlos Wallberg)

Anchors Aweigh! (1945, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra)

One scene features a pair of Grayline motorcoaches in red/white livery.

Angela's Ashes (1999, Robert Carlyle, Emily Watson)

Features 1930 Leyland Badger TA4/Plaxton KW7604 and former Lancashire United 202 reg TF818, a 1930 Leyland Lion LT1/Roe, both supplied by Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society
Also features a Stockport Corporation Leyland Tiger TS7 (was this Stockport 191 (JA7591)?) and a Wigan Leyland Tiger TS4 (was this Wigan 81 (EK5454)?).(thanks Dick Gilbert). Another sighting is a Guy Wolf carrying fictional registration ZA9437

More fake registrations in this bus station scene.

The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1954, Diane Cilento, Felix Aylmer

Cilento plays an angel who has to avoid London's trolleybus wires as she descends to earth in the Islington area. Opening scenes show a London Transport RTL on service 73 in Islington, also a brief glimpse of a London Transport trolleybus. (+Colin Read)

Anita and Me (2002)

Paul Soper and Martin Benson separately drew my attention to a Bristol MW used in this movie set in the West Midlands in the 1970s. To be fair, very little of the bus is actually seen! Paul noted a false registration, which appears to have been glued on over the original:

Note the first of these two captures shows a partial fleet number 224x - I believe this bus to be preserved Lincolnshire Road Car 2245, a 1960 Bristol MW5G/Eastern Coachworks.....as I've said, you don't get to see much of the bus otherwise:

À nous les Petites Anglaises (1976, dir Michel Lang)

"In 1975 a French film 'À Nous Les Petites Anglaises' was shot on location in Thanet in Kent. The film is about some French schoolboys who go to an English language school in the late 1950s to improve their English but end up chatting up the local girls. The film was given a limited release in the UK in 1977 under the title 'English Girls - Wow!'
Several East Kent buses appear incidentally in the film, but two were actually hired from East Kent for quite long sequences: 1959 AEC Regent V double-decker PFN882 and 1956 AEC Reliance single-decker LJG307. Both of these buses were still in stock in 1975 and in their original livery." (thanks Rob Sissons)

Apollo 13 (1995, Tom Hanks)

Two GM New-looks in a 'John F Kennedy Space Center' white/blue/black livery appear behind spectators after the Apollo 13 launch. (thanks Bill Mellor)

Ask a Policeman (1939, Will Hay)

Will Hay stars as a policeman in this classic comedy which features a London Transport AEC Renown Bluebird-type LT1249(GX5202) being driven around Brooklands race track (including the banked bit) with the driver trying not to hit any of the racing cars which are also on the track. Steve Floyd notes:
"The closing sequence of 'Ask A Policeman' has Will Hay, Graham Moffat and Moore Marriot, all dressed as policemen but handcuffed together, chasing some crooks making off in a lorry. They run past Mortlake Garage with LT1249 parked outside with Route 9 blinds."

A second older LT also blinded for route 9 is parked in the doorway of the garage.
"The next scene has all three of them squashed in the cab, chasing the crooks in the bus. As the bus stops at traffic lights (as an STL passes), passengers run and board the bus. The three in the cab look back in amazement and Will Hay says 'they're all coming with us!'.

There are several street and road scenes, and a policeman at a 'Tardis' police box reports that 'the stolen bus is in the Weybridge area.'. The crooks in the lorry see they are being chased by a bus, then spot a police road block. They turn off with the bus and other police in pursuit. They end up on Brooklands Racetrack, and have to swerve in between racing cars.

The lorry and the bus collide head on and the crooks are caught."

Colin Read notes a scene just before the Brooklands sequence almost certainly filmed in Dorking in Surrey.

Atonement (2007, Keira Knightley, James McEvoy)

Four (postwar) AEC RTs appear in a London scene, three in predominantly red livery (two with roofboxes) and a fourth in wartime red/white:

One of the red RTs is rare Saunders-bodied RT3062 (KXW171):

The wartime-liveried RT carries registration 3764MT on the front, but the rear plate, KXW212, identifies it as RT3103. (thanks Steve Way, who notes the filming date as 29 July 2006)

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997, Mike Myers)

"In the opening sequences of the film 'Austin Powers' a location, which pretends to be London, but is very obviously the USA included in the background a Bristol Lodekka FLF in red/yellow livery, ex-Bristol Omnibus or Hants & Dorset (all slider vents)" (thanks Mark Harrington). As you can see the man somersaulting into the car is not Mike Myers!

In a later scene Burt Bacharach plays piano on the upper deck of an open top Alexander-bodied Daimler Fleetline, formerly Trent 486 (HRC486D):

Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999, Mike Myers)

Seen in the background is a 'London Transport' Alexander-bodied Daimler Fleetline or Leyland Atlantean. (noted by Jim O'Donnell on uk-bus-fleetnews discussion group). Ian Simpson suggests "ex Bournemouth Daimler Fleetline(s)/Alexander, judging by the side destination display layout and the livery style"; some of these vehicles served in London as DMO class. Keith Baynton comments: "The 'London' scenes bus is most likely to be ex-Bournemouth 186 (CRU186C) freshly painted in London Transport DMO 5 condition. 186 is shown on film with a roof in place, whilst similar 183 (CRU183C)(DMO 2) also in USA is now recorded as a permanent open-topper. Both buses were new in 1965 as Daimler Fleetline CRG6LX/Weymann (to Alexander style) convertibles. Two similar buses are preserved in the Bournemouth Transport Museum (180 and 187 - DMO 6)"

Austin Powers 3: Goldmember (2002, Mike Myers)

Low-grade sequel-to-a-sequel has a scene in which Austin narrowly avoids a head-on smash with a pair of buses. They're ostensibly Japanese, but this is Austin Powers land, so they're actually American. As identified by Snookie at the ICMDB, the left one is a 1980 Grumman Flxible 870 in the colours of LA Metro Rapid, the right is a 1989 Flxible Metro of Academy Bus Lines, New Jersey:

Autumn Leaves (1956, Joan Crawford)

"Several Los Angeles GM TDH-4801 old looks appear." (thanks Bruce Korusek)

Avalon (1990, dir Barry Levinson)

Lots of footage of a Baltimore PCC streetcar - actually a plywood replica was used. Baltimore Streetcar Museum helped with construction. Filming took place in Baltimore, much of it in the same locations as the former number 8 streetcar line.

The Avengers (1998, Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Connery)

In an echo of the Linda Thorson era TV episode 'False Witness', the feature film shows Mother's office aboard a London Transport AEC Routemaster. It has a gold fleetname and flake grey stripe. Later in the movie a snow-covered Trafalgar Square (very obviously a model shot) has three not-very-good model AEC Regent IIIs,

......but a brief scene in this sequence shows Steed (Fiennes) standing on a snow-coated RM lying on its side, and an RM is later seen being rolled over in the wind:

Comments from Ian at The Prospero Files (now offline): "Vehicle coordinator for the Avengers movie Duncan Barbour bought three Routemaster buses from a guy in Chertsey who specialised in collecting old Routemasters. One was used as the visual 'mobile 'bus seen travelling through the streets of Avengerland, ...the second was prepared in such a way that the entire side could be removed in order to film the interior shots, ....and the third was laid on its side for the London snow scene shot: Incidentally the advert on the side of the bus for 'Tea' featured a picture of producer Jerry Weintraub's parents. When filming was completed the guy in Chertsey bought two of the buses back. As far as I know all the number plates featured in the movie with the exception of the Bentley's 'RT4700' were false." Can anyone suggest identities for the three RMs?
A scene cut from the final version of the movie shows Steed hopping off the bus at Emma Peel's flat.
Avengers film

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