Hidden City

This political mystery from 1987 marks the directorial debut of Stephen Poliakoff, who also wrote the screenplay. Charles Dance and Cassie Stuart take centre stage in a tale which starts full of promise and intrigue but is ultimately let down by a confusing climax that leaves more questions than answers.

Academic writer and statistician James Richards (Charles Dance) gets annoyed when, during the showing of a film to young pupils in the lecture room, the kids burst out laughing – reason being that the wrong film is displayed on the video monitors. Humiliated and even more annoyed, James demands that the researcher in question gets fired for the mix-up and that’s precisely what happens. A few days later while on the way to work, he gets cornered by a punkish young woman who demands an apology from him. Her name is Sharon Newton (Cassie Stuart) and she’s the researcher who got fired thanks to him (or thanks due to her own mistake, more to the point). However, Sharon is willing to forgive him if he will help her with something special: she has got her hands on a strange piece of archive film from the late 40s or early 50s, initially depicting little else than scenes of various London streets before also depicting what appears to be the abduction of a woman – who was she, why was she abducted and were her kidnappers government officials? The film then ends with the instruction to watch another film called ‘The Hedgerows of England’. Dismissive towards Sharon, James replies that all of this has nothing to do with him and that he’s too busy with his own work in order to help her find the missing film. However, Sharon won’t let go because well, not only has ‘The Hedgerows of England’ been classified by the Ministry of Defence but due to James’ excellent connection to upper crust circles she hopes that with his help, they can trace the missing film.

Eventually, curiosity gets the better of James and he agrees to help her although initially, their very different dynamic (he is calm and logical, she is manic and brash) doesn’t really help matters. Soon, both James and Sharon find themselves in truly strange surroundings when they discover a ‘hidden city’ below London such as the old Kingsway tram tunnel including catacomb-like pockets and the huge Edmonton incinerator (these days known as the EcoPark). But there’s also hotels, masonic rituals and Masonic worship right under Piccadilly Circus! Just as James and Sharon track down the location of the missing film in a disused archive underneath Oxford Street, they learn that the film has been picked up by a garbage disposal team and marked for disposal at a landfill site. The mystery thickens when they notice lots of police hanging around (why?) but manage to rescue the can of film before it ends up being burned in the incinerator. Looking at the footage, things get even more confusing when, at the end of the film, the viewer is informed to look out for another film called ‘Hop-Picking in Kent’ and it’s not as if ‘The Hedgerows of England’ provided much of a clue.

James, who lives separated from his wife, begins to enjoy his strange liaison with the equally strange Sharon and one morning wakes up hungover in her place. It’s only then that he discovers that she’s a single mother and of course, before he can say ‘No’ she’s already coaxed him into looking after the toddler while she is out working. Sort of amused, he takes the toddler along to a meeting with his ex-wife when he gets cornered by two men who attempt to beat him up and demand to know where “something that he has recently found” is… His yuppie friend Anthony (Richard E. Grant) has also been questioned and just how much does James’ professional acquaintance Brewster (Bill Paterson) know? James and the increasingly obsessive Sharon come to realise that they are not the only ones after the film or rather, the secret it contains and that their lives are now possibly in danger, especially after they do get hold of ‘Hop-Picking in Kent’…

This is the moment when the labyrinthine plot should have taken a different direction, for example, a proper explanation as to the mystery of the original film footage which raised Sharon’s interest to begin with. Instead, the plot remains pretty labyrinthine up to the end and merely offers confusing suggestions as to what really may have happened, but not a certain conclusion. Maybe Stephen Poliakoff was too clever for his own good here, nonetheless, the film – now available restored and on HD Blu-ray, is worth it for the bizarre settings alone!

Bonus Material includes: audio commentary with Poliakoff and film critic Michael Brooke / Treasures from the BFI Archives (58 min) including ‘Cheese Mites’ (1903) / ‘Barging through London’ (1924) / ‘Hop Gardens of Kent’ (1933) / ‘The City’ (1939) and ‘Shown by Request’ (1947). There’s also an illustrated booklet thrown in for good measure (first pressing ony).