May
23
Dundee’s makes a convincing Bomb site
With one end of Reform street standing in as Soviet Russia for the filming of “An Englishman Abroad” in 1983 it may come as a surprise to learn that the High School of Dundee was dressed up in 1988 to look like Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power for the filming of the four part BBC drama “Christabel”.
Production teams spent three days decorating the school with swastikas and pictures of Hitler staring out above the playground railings making a remarkably convincing Berlin. Ironically when researchers were looking for ideal locations for filming they realised that 1988 Berlin looked very little like the city in Hitler’s era. The most convincing locations for filming were Budapest and Dundee. This meant that during one scene in the drama Christabel gets off a train in Berlin and runs through a tunnel in Budapest before coming out the other end in Dundee.
Three days of turning the school into Berlin translated into only fifteen seconds of footage. The only trace of the High School of Dundee in the film was a reflection on the car window that Christabel and her husband travelled in after witnessing the burning of a synagogue.
Christabel, is the story of an Englishwoman (played by a young Elizabeth Hurley) who marries a German solicitor (Stephen Dillane). He is then imprisoned for being linked to the plot to assassinate Hitler leaving Christabel in Germany to prove his innocence whilst Hitler’s power grows and the country moves closer to war.
Onlookers at the time can recall the many extras wearing German uniforms parading up and down Reform Street in between takes, which must have been quite a shock for those who were unaware of the filming taking place.
Other areas in Dundee were also used for filming, including the Old Camperdown Works which was partly demolished at the time making it the perfect location to film a bomb site. Sixteen local school children even got to be extras and were dressed as urchins for one scene.
The aptly named Coffin Mill (because it is shaped like a coffin) at the bottom of Pole Park was also used as the set of a burning synagogue which had been set alight by SA storm troopers.