LONDON’S MYSTERIES AND THRILLERS IN MOVIES AND THEIR LONDON LANDMARKS

Passionate about thriller movies London-style? Is Sherlock Holmes your cup of tea? Love James Bond? Fanatic of V For Vendetta?

Here are four London spots you can’t miss!

Brompton Cemetery and Sherlock Holmes

Wandering among the tombstones of Brompton Cemetery (belonging to the Royal Parks), which are weathered by rain and moss-covered, is a unique experience and, surprise surprise, Sherlock was there!

Sherlock Holmes, the detective endowed with incredible intuition created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was recently played by Robert Downey Jr in the two films of 2009 and 2011, both directed by Guy Ritchie. The first  (Sherlock Holmes) is focused on the character of Lord Blackwood, sentenced to death for the murder of five girls. The scene in which Holmes and Watson (played by Jude Law) discover the disappearance of Blackwood’s corpse, is shot inside Brompton Cemetery, near Earl’s Court.

 

 

Secret Intelligence Service MI6 and James Bond

Get out of Vauxhall Tube Station,   walk along a stretch of  Vauxhall Bridge and turn right; facing the river you will find the majestic building of the British secret service,  MI6, designed according to the architectural model of  Aztec temples, with an impressive area of 23,000 square metres of concrete, steel, glass and aluminum, some of which is below ground. The building appears in a number of 007 films, such as The World Is Not Enough (1999), where Pierce Brosnan is involved in a boat chase along the Thames, just after Maria Grazia Cucunotta has detonated a bomb inside MI6. The headquarters of the secret services suffers another attack in Skyfall (2012), under the astounded gaze of Judi Dench.

 

The Gherkin and Match Point/Basic Instinct 2

Take  bus 344 from Albert Embankment towards the northeast: in about 40 minutes you will be in the city’s financial district. One block from the Wormwood Street stop lies 30 St Mary Axe, nicknamed The Gherkin; designed by architect Norman Foster and completed in 2004, it is home to many offices. The Gherkin has been the setting for several films: In Match Point by Woody Allen (2005), former tennis coach and future killer (SPOILER ALERT!) Jonathan Rhys will be offered by his future father-in-law a job as an executive inside the skyscraper.

Power, seduction and crimes pass throughout the 41 floors of the Gherkin even in Basic Instinct 2 (2006) starring Sharon Stone.
If you happen to be in London during  London Open House, an annual festival in which some buildings are exceptionally open to the public, go and peek inside.

 

Old Bailey & V For Vendetta

V for Vendetta is a graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd which was transposed onto film in 2005: in the futuristic London of the movie, oppressed by a totalitarian regime reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984, you can see many of London’s famous emblems. One of these is the Old Bailey, the neo-classical building which houses the central criminal court of England and Wales. You can reach it from the Gherkin along Cornhill and Cheapside. The V for Vendetta movie chooses precisely this location to launch the first attack, in the year 2019, where the Old Bailey  is blown up, accompanied by a spectacular fireworks display and the sound of Tchaikovsky.

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