The perfect fusion of bus spotting and film trivia.....
Buses on Screen - Films D-Dl
Daikyoju Gappa AKA Gappa, the Triphibian Monsters (1967)
Carlos Wallberg notes "A 1960s Japanese movie about a trio of monsters named Gappa. In an early scene, a japanese tram and a bus can be seen, supposedly in Tokyo, they are liveried gray with a red band. There are aircraft to be seen too, in the shape of miniature F104, balloons, a F-27 and another in the airport."
The Damned United (2009, Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney)
Controversial movie about controversial football manager Brian Clough includes cameos by two preserved coaches. 5188RU was new to Excelsior of Bournemouth in 1963. It's a Bedford VAL14 with Plaxton bodywork, which spent some years in this livery with West Wight Coaches on the Isle of Wight. It's now superbly preserved by Johnson's of Hodthorpe.
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VUB396H is a 1970 Leyland Leopard, also Plaxton bodied, now preserved in the livery of Wallace Arnold, its original owner:
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Archive footage included in the film includes this Plaxton bodied coach, which appears to be a Trent Leyland Leopard, probably from the 1967 batch:
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....also various coaches at Wembley Stadium, including a Bedford VAM/Plaxton:
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Dance Hall (1950, Bonar Colleano, Donald Houston, Petula Clark, Diana Dors)
A scene at a glider airfield has this halfcab single decker in the background - is this a Maudslay?
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Colin Read notes the appearance of London Transport RT318 (HLX135):
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Dancing at Lughnasa (1998, Michael Gambon, Meryl Streep)
Irish-set movie opens with Gambon's arrival aboard Great Northern Railway 389, a 1951 GNR with Park Royal/GNR body, registration IY7383, although in this scene it carries IH3607:
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The Dancing Masters (1943, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy)
Towards the end of the film the duo ride on top of a double deck bus.
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The lady driver is frightened by an apparently rabid dog.
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Actually, it's eaten one of her cream cakes and got cream around its mouth, but driver, conductress and passengers all jump off, except for Ollie and Stan.
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Noticing the erratic progress of the bus, Stan ventures downstairs and takes the wheel - upstairs to Ollie when it comes off in his hands.
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Stan eventually falls off, but Ollie is still trapped aboard when the bus ends up riding The Cyclone Racer, a rollercoaster ride in Longbeach, California, then flying through the air.
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The Cyclone Racer was one of the most famous rides of its time, and also featured in 'Strike Me Pink' (Eddie Cantor) and 'Abbott and Costello in Hollywood'.
Dangerous Afternoon (1961, Ruth Dunning)
Anachronistically, an ST and STL of London Transport are seen in service in London's Fleet Street. (+Colin Read)
Dangerous Minds (1995, Michelle Pfeiffer)
Set in Pasadena, California; Denise Annells reports a green Gillig and several school buses at the beginning of the movie. Any more information?
Danny the Champion of the World (1989, Jeremy Irons, Robbie Coltrane et al)
Features preserved London Transport AEC Regal IV/Metro-Cammell RF10 (LUC 210). (thanks Richard Haughey)
Dans La Ville Blanche AKA In the White City (1983, Bruno Ganz)
Views of trams and double deck buses in Lisbon, Portugal. (+Colin Read)
Dante's Peak (1997, Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton)
Early in the climactic scene of this volcano-erupting movie a yellow International school bus is crushed.
Darby's Rangers (1958, James Garner)
Opens in Washington during World War Two:
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The action soon switches to a Hollywood version of Britain. As London is bombed by the Luftwaffe, a US Ranger befriends a London bus conductress. It's clear as the bus arrives that it's not a London bus! But what is it?
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The interior shots don't exactly convince either......
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The last footage of the bus shows the pronounced snout and odd proportions....
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....but this view showing fleet number N214 confirms it as the same bus used in the Danny Kaye musical Merry Andrew also in 1958.
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Darling (1965, Julie Christie, Laurence Harvey, Dirk Bogarde)
Passing buses, including a Routemaster and an RT, in the London street scenes provide a backdrop for Julie Christie:
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.......and a Southdown Leyland Tiger Cub crosses in front of the camera:
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The Dark Man (1951, Maxwell Reed)
A distant view of Maidstone and District double deckers, and a lot of trolleybus wires:
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....but there's some great footage of Maidstone and District SO48 (LKT996), a 1953 Bristol L6A with Eastern Coachworks body. As the heroine boards, it's passed by a Hastings trolleybus:
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Interior footage is clear, too:
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(originally flagged up by Colin Read)
Date With A Dream (1948, Terry-Thomas)
"About 20 minutes in, the scene with the market barrow has (in the background) a half-cab coach, followed by a Green Line TF (rare) and 3 STLs which pass in both directions" (thanks Colin Read). The TF class was based on the then-revolutionary Leyland Tiger FEC, an underfloor engined variant of the Tiger. The coach is from Western Scottish:
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It's passed by the TF:
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...then we see the STLs:
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Daughter of Darkness (1948, Anne Crawford, Maxwell Reed)
Steve Debank from Britmovie.co.uk supplied screenshots of this bus - fleetname is 'Yorkshire Omnibus'. Is this a Dennis Ace?
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The Da Vinci Code (2006, Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou)
David Frazer provides these photographs and reports: "I was up in London one Sunday in September, and by chance came across 'The Da Vinci Code' filming outside the Temple Church in Fleet Street. Watched by several dozen onlookers, the crew filmed Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou run a few metres down the street and hide behind the corner of a building, over and over again.
The production had a convoy of background vehicles that would drive east down Fleet Street, turn around and drive back the other way to appear in the shot. One of them was an East Thames Buses Volvo, fleet number VWL1, with fake blinds for route 11 pasted on."
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It's a Wright-bodied Volvo B7TL; David adds: "The fake blinds, which are not in the correct New Johnson typeface, are particularly obvious in this photo." In the movie Hanks and Tatou travel on VWL1.
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The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal)
A New York GMC RTS is wrecked when the storm hits New York, then crushed under the bow of a Russian ship.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, Edward Judd, Janet Munro, Leo McKern)
The two stars are in Battersea Park when a fog cloud envelops London. They manage to find their way out of the park and onto a passing bus, RTL362 (KGU438). They sit upstairs and discover the fog only covers the lower deck. RTL362 also appears in The Sandwich Man (1966):
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(thanks to Bob Wingrove and Colin Read). Peter Burton comments: "Further vehicles can be seen in the film, including a Brighton Hove & District convertible Bristol K, from an aerial shot of Brighton Palace Pier:
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Plenty of RT family vehicles in background shots, as well as a LT trolleybus front wheel area (I think!), an RF,"
[NLExxx] "a full fronted coach"[in the closing scenes] "and a foreign tram."
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A bus is seen being blown over by high winds - it appears to be an STL, but the radiator is not seen clearly:
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Seen on the front of a copy of the Daily Express newspaper is a photograph of an RTL pushed over by high winds on Westminster Bridge
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, Michael Rennie)
"There is a brief shot of what purports to be a London bus. In the same film there is also a brief shot of Westminster Bridge in London on which several trams are visible. There is also a brief shot of a PCC tram in Washington DC at the beginning of the film, just before the spaceship lands." (thanks Alan Sinclair)
The 'London' doubledecker is in fact seen in two different sequences; it's fleet number 2003 with the Fifth Avenue Coach Company. In the first it's clearly in New York. In the second it is posed with a man in British police uniform, who obscures the fact that the driver is sitting on the wrong side! Curiously, the very modern fully-fronted body style and the destination 21 Piccadilly Circus make it look more 1970s Manchester than 1950s London.....this is the unique prototype 1933-built Yellow Coach Model 706 'Queen Mary'. It looks so modern perhaps because it's a 72-seat rear-engined doubledecker! It also appeared in 'On The Town' and 'The Snakepit'; it was wrecked by fire a few years ago at a museum in California. (identification by Malcolm Thwaite)
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Colin Read notes Washington PCC cars 1256 and 1467; fleet name is 'Capital Transit':
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Also seen are several buses, one with 'Colonial Historic Tours', the others with Capital Transit:
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This street shot has several unidentified buses:
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A view of London has a number of tramcars:
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008, Keanu Reeves)
The remake is less interesting than the original; almost the last shot of the movie has a view of stopped traffic near London's Houses of Parliament, including an all-red Bristol VRTSL3/Eastern Coachworks masquerading as a London bus. However, the vehicles in the scene are all identified as being based in California, so the scene is be a fake!
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The Day of the Jackal (1973, Edward Fox)
"There are glimpses of a traditional rear-platform Paris Renault bus and a more modern Paris bus." (thanks Alan Sinclair) Briefly features a 3-axle trolleybus in Genoa, Italy (+Colin Read)
D-Day Minus One (1945, produced by the USAF)
A 16 minute record of the operations of the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions in the 1944 invasion of France, has scenes of the troops being ferried to their camps in England in buses, at least two of them from Barton Transport. The screen captures are from the public domain copy downloadable from http://www.archive.org - the original film would no doubt be clearer. This may have fleet number 331.
D-Day Minus One
This Barton Leyland (is this 252, reg BVO452?) is the most clearly seen
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Dead Alive AKA Brain Dead (1992, dir Peter Jackson)
Features Wellington trams. (+Colin Read)
The Deadly Affair (1966, James Mason, Simone Signoret, Maximillan Schell
David Thrower notes an appearance by London Transport RTL1050 (LLU829).
Signoret's character catches Southdown 1182 (BUF82C), a 1965 Leyland Leopard with Plaxton body, to London's Victoria Coach Station:
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When she arrives at Victoria, she disembarks and walks across in front of 1182 and a South Midland Bristol LS6G/Eastern Coachworks, then as the camera pans across, a Maidstone and District AEC Reliance and another from Black and White Motorways:
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She's then followed out onto a London Transport AEC Routemaster RML displaying route 88 on Buckingham Palace Road: When she arrives in The Strand, she's seen getting off an AEC RT, but the interior is a Routemaster: Lastly the sighting of RTL1050 is from the rear, in the dark:
Dead Men are Dangerous (1939, Robert Newton
Reportedly features London Transport LT-type AEC Renowns. (+Colin Read)
Dead of Night (1945, Mervyn Johns)
A collection of ghost stories, one of which involves a bus crash, using models, but possibly also the real thing. (+Colin Read)
Dead Poets' Society (1989, Robin Williams)
Features a couple of Flxible Clippers (thanks Carlos Wallberg)
Dead Ringer (1964, Bette Davis )
"Davis rides a Los Angeles old look GM to a funeral as the film opens. You don't see her riding the bus, but it pulls up, stops, and as it pulls away you see Davis walking to the cemetery." (thanks Bruce Korusek)
Death Wish (1974, Charles Bronson, Hope Lange)
Alan Aaron notes: "Death Wish takes place in New York City. While much of it was filmed in the subways, there is one brief moment when he steps off of a GMC New Look Bus. What is unique about this is that the bus is equipped with outside advertising signs from the Bus-O-Rama Corporation. These signs have been known as Bus-O-Ramas, Bat-Wings or Elephant Ears." Daniel Dey provided this screen capture:
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Death Wish II (1982, Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland)
Alan Aaron observes "Death Wish II takes place in Los Angeles. In one scene he is in a public square with Jill Ireland and his daughter. He goes to get ice cream and some one takes his money. Bronson starts chasing him and in the background is an MCI-8." Also seen are a 1979 AM General 10240-T, fleet number 8027, and a 1981 GMC RTS Mk IV of SCRTD.
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(screencaps by Daniel Dey)
The Deep End (2001, Tilda Swinton)
Set in Lake Tahoe, California, the youngest boy in the family arrives home in school bus number 45.
Derby Day AKA Four Against Fate (1952, Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding et al
A collection of stories around characters on their way to the Epsom Derby; includes a brief shot of London's Fleet Street, featuring London Transport RTW326 (KXW426) on service 6.
Desperate Moment (1953, Dirk Bogarde, Mai Zetterling)
Two views of Berlin front engined doubledeckers, probably Bussing. (+Colin Read)
Detour to Terror (1980, OJ Simpson)
Filmed in New Mexico; OJ Simpson plays the driver of a bus threatened by local hoodlums. The film starts with a GMC 4107 or 08 going through a bus wash. Apart from the bus driven by Simpson there is bus station footage with Greyhound MC-6, MC-7 and MC-8 motorcoaches. (information drawn from the Yahoo groups)
Dial 1119 (1950, Marshall Thompson)
"Thompson rides a Greyhound Silversides bus. At a rest stop he apparently takes the driver's gun which he spots in the front of the bus. At the end of the trip the driver asks him about the gun and is shot." (thanks Bruce Korusek)
A Diary for Timothy (1946, dir Humphrey Jennings)
Documentary looking at the life of a baby born on the fifth anniversary of the start of the Second World War - what would life be like for him in the future? A London Transport STL follows an LT
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Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973, Jim Dale, Spike Milligan)
"Features a red London Transport RT in a street scene shot round Elstree/Borehamwood" (thanks Jon Price)
Dilemma (1962, Ingrid Hafner, Peter Halliday)
Little-known B-movie has a view of a London Transport RTL on route 88:
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(thanks Bob Wingrove)
Dirty Harry (1971, Clint Eastwood)
Harry Callahan boards PCC streetcar 1169 of the San Francisco Municipal Railway while chasing a villain. The car is boarded in one of the stations in the long tunnel section in the SF suburbs. (thanks Alan Sinclair)
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Later in the movie a San Francisco Ford B series school bus (carrying the fleetname Dechsel Charter Service) is hijacked. Callahan jumps on the roof:
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Disclosure (1994, Demi Moore, Michael Douglas)
Features Seattle trolleybuses.
The Divorce of Lady X (1936, Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier)
"Opens with shots of Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square showing lots of London STLs." (thanks Jon Price)
Divorzio all'italiana AKA Divorce - Italian Style (1961, Marcello Mastroianni)
Brief footage of a trolleybus in Cagliari, Italy. (+Colin Read)
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