MovieChat Forums > The Offence (1973) Discussion > Filming Locations

Filming Locations

posted 20 years ago by DC1977
22 replies | jump to latest

After visiting Bracknell recently and knowing that some scenes were shot in nearby Wildridings I took an aimless and rather hopeful drive in search of recognisable locations.

To my surprise I drove past the building used for the school in the film and remembered it immediately. In actual fact it is (and has always been) a retirement home and the scene where Connery approaches the informer and eats his chips looks quite like Wildridings Shopping Centre that's just round the corner from the retirement home.

Apologies in advance to the residents of Wildridings. Lumet's choice of locations is excellent and this is proved in both The Deadly Affair and The Offence.

I can think of no better place than Wildridings to match the grim and depressing tone of the film.

It really is a bleak, God forsaken place full of underpasses and little bridges and has the kind of soulessness and lack of character that is typical of many towns that were specifically designed like Milton Keynes which is also a miserable looking hole.

[–] med77_99 20 years ago

I see, but where is wildridings located exactley, is it in England ?? and how far is it from London ?? Is it a city or a small town ??

[–] DC1977 20 years ago

Hello

This is a link to a map of where the scene at the school was shot. I have chosen a huge scale (1:1000000) to show where it is in relation to London.

http://multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=475000&Y=175000&width=700&height=400&gride=486092&gridn=168208&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=pc&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=RG127RX&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&zm=1&scale=1000000

To zoom in you can adjust the scale on the drop down menu at the top of the map, a scale of 1:10000 is appropriate for a close up view.

Hope this helps

[–] TrevorAclea 20 years ago

The part of the Bracknell shopping centre where Ian Bannen is picked up was still relatively unchanged when I was last there a few years ago (the rest has been changed quite a lot), although the ABC cinema (then a single screen - showing Please, Sir! - but a two-screener when it was my local in the late 70s) has long since been demolished and replaced by a multiplex and bowling alley.

"Gentlemen, is this a great moment or a small one? I'm afraid I don't know."

[–] DC1977 20 years ago

Have you seen the other locations in Wildridings i.e. the residential home that was used for the school and the nearby shopping centre?

I'm not sure if Wildridings shopping centre was used for the scene where Johnson talks to the informant, it was shot at night after all but it does look similar.

Am I right in assuming that Bracknell shopping centre is a different place?

[–] TrevorAclea 20 years ago

I'm beginning to get the suspicion they may be the same - back in the 70s, everyone either called it Bracknell town centre or Bracknell Shopping Centre. We used to have great fun with riding shopping trolleys from the supermarkets down the curved pedestrian ramps after the shops were shut (the place was usually a ghost town by 6:00). I've seen most of the other locations except for the block of flats.

"Gentlemen, is this a great moment or a small one? I'm afraid I don't know."

[–] DC1977 20 years ago

So you know the location for the residential home that was used for the school?

Wildridings shopping centre is literally a few hundred metres from there.

I've been to the location for the block of flats. Its called Point Royal.

Here is a decent pic of it from the web:

http://www.bracknell2002.freeserve.co.uk/Photographs/Easthampstead/PointRoyal.JPG

Apologies for what I said earlier about the area considering you lived there but I do think its a pretty dreary area and well suited to the tone of the film.

It looks like I might be right though... I came across this website.

http://www.knowhere.co.uk/55_goodbad.html

I visited and photographed the Point Royal location. If what is written about it is true then I was lucky to come away unscathed!!!

[–] TrevorAclea 20 years ago

No, you're right - it was a pretty dreary New Town. All that grey concrete and 50's-60s planned-environment design was the perfect setting for the movie, and the movie catches the feel of the place surprisingly well (well enough for the local council to pretend the film wasn't shot there when it turned up on TV!). That chip shop in the movie pretty much lived off the cinema because once the shops shut, there was no reason at all to come into that town centre. The town wasn't particularly rough at the time (although I didn't live in the town - my parents owned a hair salon there, so I spent a lot of time there), but you could certainly see the potential: it didn't feel like the town had grown naturally because people wanted to be there, it always felt like some post-war planner felt it would be a good place to put some people while they were rebuilding London!

"Gentlemen, is this a great moment or a small one? I'm afraid I don't know."

[–] DC1977 20 years ago

Do you know the residential home in Wildridings that was used for the school?

[–] TrevorAclea 20 years ago

I think I went there once, but I only recognised it to drive past.

"Gentlemen, is this a great moment or a small one? I'm afraid I don't know."

[–] TrevorAclea 20 years ago

...I now live a few minutes away from Twickenham Film Studios, where the rest of it was shot!

"Gentlemen, is this a great moment or a small one? I'm afraid I don't know."

[–] taffy_turner 19 years ago

Is that the same Tower Block used in the movie "The Offence"? From what I've seen of the tower block in the movie it has a sort of concrete outer skeletal frame and it also featured in the 1969 Jenny Agutter movie "I Start Counting" which also features the whole area/estate/shopping precinct too and it looked very nice back then.

So it's a shame the council has left it decay like that. Still that's very typical of the councils in the UK as modernist coucil estates like this have generally been used as dumping grounds over the years and is it any wonder things go wrong?

Unfortunately there's a lot of people who only deserve mud huts on an island of their own and not future thinking modernist homes/flats with all the mod cons!

"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off!"

[–] taffy_turner 19 years ago

Any chance of uploading images of the Point Royal location?

"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off!"

[–] gino259 19 years ago

The replies to your post include varying degrees of accuracy. I have lived in Bracknell nearly all my life and, having watched the film recently, recognised many landmarks/areas that were included.

Wildridings is a neighbourhood in Bracknell (pop. 60,000ish). The block of flats IS Point Royal, which is actually in the next neighbourhood, Easthampstead. Wildridings shopping centre (if you can call it that) is merely a handful of shops. There is a school on the other side of these neighbourhood shops.

The scene involving Sean Connery and the 'snitch' with a bag of chips, is part of the town centre (the main shopping area for Bracknell). The town centre is situated within a Ring Road (one way traffic system) and this scene takes place at the northern most part, close to where Ian Bannen was picked up by the police car. The chip shop is still there, though many of the other shops have now changed. The whole town centre is due to be re-developed in the next few years.

It was fascinating to see how many parts of the town are completely different and how many unchanged. I vaguely remembered seeing bits of the film 15-20 years ago, but hadn't realised there was so much footage of Bracknell.

I too remember the old cinema and the trips on a Saturday morning to watch the latest Childrens Film Foundation release! It was knocked down about 20 years ago, replaced by an office block.

You are right about the design of Wildridings (and many other neighbourhoods within Bracknell that were built around that time). The earlier development of Bracknell (before it was launched as a New Town), was much less typical of the architecture and planning of the late 60's/early 70's.

One more thing - the 'ghost town' feel of the town centre at night was typical as there were no residential buildings nearby.

[–] DC1977 19 years ago

I'm not sure if you are referring to the 'school' in the film when you say there 'is a school on the other side of these neighbourhood shops.'

I do know that Heathlands Residential Home was used for the school. It has always been a residential home.

http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/liv-heathlands.htm

This is just round the corner from Wildridings Shopping Centre. I thought the shopping centre in Wildridings looked a bit like the area where Connery met the grass so I wasn't sure if it was the same location.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] DC1977 19 years ago

The common that the girl walks into and where she's approached by the rapist is very different today. There's a McDonalds in its place now. The underpass remains.

[–] taffy_turner 19 years ago

Like I said the Tower Block and surrounding areas were also used for the 1969 Jenny Agutter movie "I Start Counting" and back then i'd have loved to have lived there as it all looked so clean and new and of course there's a sense of innocence about this film about a teenage school girl (Jenny Agutter) who believes her older step brother is a murderer of young Mini-Skirt wearing girls.

Oh and her other step brother who works in a groovy record shop ironically does a bit of drugs himself and his hippy looking friend (who looks very familiar and used to star in the Bill) calls to their apartment in the Tower Block and delivers his stash too! But it's nothing more than a tablet or two and his older brother threatens to flush it down the toilet, so nothing nasty takes place as such.

Anyway this is also a great film to get (even though it's not released yet on DVD, nor video for that matter and I last saw it on TV back in 1982!) as it's a cracking snap-shot of optimistic British life as it was in the late 1960's and I got a very good copy on DVD off a collector in America and you can get a copy too if you go the the message board for this film and look for the post by Cliff Gretano.

And lastly is it just coincidence that the little girl who gets sexually abused by the paedophile in "The Offence" is called Jenny?

"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off!"

[–] DC1977 19 years ago

The girl in The Offence is called Janie.

[–] taffy_turner 19 years ago

Oh well that'll teach me to not look at the end titles then! ;O)

"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off!"

[–] bigbasspa-1 18 years ago

Point Royal (affectionately known as the threepenny bit in the good old days) was designed by the same firm of architects, Arup Associates, that designed Sydney Opera House. Not a lot of people know that. :)

[–] taffy_turner 18 years ago

Well if thats the case it should be renovated/restored and becaome a listed building.

Oh and switching it from council to private might help too?

"You're Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off!"

[–] mariegriffiths 10 years ago

Crossways (The area of the town centre where Connery lurks ) has recently been completely demolished.