Smiley's People - Paris Locations (Part One)

In July 1981 the cast and crew of Smiley’s People embarked on the first of three overseas location filming trips for the series. They would start in France filming Madame Ostrakova’s story between 5th and 24th July. The production team were based in Paris between the 5th and 22nd July before moving out to Cergy Pontoise for the last couple of days of filming on the 22nd-24th July.

'Chrisst' has done a tremendous amount of detective work to uncover so many of the locations for this series (and has already published an excellent summary on this website) but, we’re going to focus specifically on the Paris locations for this article. Thanks to the blu-ray release of the series it’s now possible to see a level of detail in the picture that simply wasn’t previously visible. This has led to the identification of a number of new locations but, as you’ll see, there are a few places that are still tantalisingly out of reach. Perhaps someone out there with a bit of local knowledge might be able to fill in the last few missing pieces of the puzzle? I’ll let Chris take up the story...

..and the most tantalising missing piece of the puzzle is right at the start. Where does Madame Ostrakova work? Author and screenwriter Le Carre made Ostrakova an Estonian and accordingly her place of work is called Baltic SA Import - Export.

We can assume that she enjoys a supervisory role in the warehouse. Here's the company address and her production schedule for the month of August.

Baltic S.A. Import Export

------- et fils

Rue du Commerce

Paris 75015

'et fils' means 'and Sons' but I can't make out the name of the Company. Is that Palhor or Balhor? I've tried looking them up. Rue du Commerce could be the real street but I suspect that it's just meant to signify a street with factories. There is a Rue du Commerce in Paris 15 but today it's all shops. By the way it's all meant to take place in the Fifteenth District as that's apparently the part of Paris that has attracted emigres from Eastern Europe for centuries. More of that in the future.

They pack orders of Eastern European and Russian delicacies, the vodka, the fish. By the way what are they, is that eels being carried?

Someone in the production must've chosen that location, from knowledge they had, with the spectacular translucent floor and the windows. 

Sometimes on the screen a hotel doubles as an office or an office doubles as a factory but this time the decor looks too much like a real production facility to be all smoke and mirrors. Even though we only see a room I'd not be surprised if it were a listed building, a building of (local) renown. I've tried searching online for floors of that type: translucent floor, glass floor, glass ceiling. I've tried reverse image search of the architectural features....so far no luck. 

Most recently Control has provided a clue. In the July of 1981 the production unit was based in Paris but also at Cergy Pontoise which is just to the north of the capital. It's an industrial region. So that's got to be a lead right there but so far no joy. If only we could just ask Eileen Atkins.

When we join the action it's quitting time. Played by Francois Clavier, the manager checks his watch, presses the bell and we follow Ostrakova on her journey home. So retail therpy first, looks like she's bought some greens. At 2.10 the Peugeot 304 S turns left and we see her walk into shot from the right. 

We can see that it must be on the crest of a hill by the sloping ground and the hazy view of Paris behind in the summer sunlight. So if it's a hill, in Paris then that's got to be Montmatre, Paris 18. She exchanges pleasantries with the man carrying the basket. 

Then we see Ostrakova walking down the hill towards the camera and we see Kirov for the first time, following Ostrakova walking into shot from the right.

With reference to the foliage on the left of shot and the camber of the ground in longshot we can see that Kirov is walking into shot at precisely the same location that we saw Ostrakova and I've got enough to try to find the location on Google Maps. 

There's three settings to use: Road - a map, Aerial - a birds eye view and Streetview - on the ground. All three settings have a zoom facility and in Streetview, in addition, one can pan 360 degrees and really follow an annotated path. The streets of Montmatre are arranged mostly north - south and east - west and the first thing to do is to work out where director Simon Langton placed his camera. My first clue was the spire on the horizon behind Kirov. Very hard to make out, I considered that it might have been the Eiffel Tower (even though it's the wrong shape) meaning that we would be looking south of Montmatre. Another clue I had was the hotel shown to the left. Hotel du Coeur de la Butte which translates to Hotel in the Heart of the Hill. When I wrote my original summary I could find no current listing for it online but a more recent search led me to details of closed businesses where I learned that the hotel opened on Christmas Day 1955 and closed in 1989. Its location is 42 Rue Berthe, Montmatre, Paris 18. With reference to Google Maps I was able to establish that the camera is in fact facing eastwards and that the spire must've just been a crane. 

Streetview isn't available everywhere but fortunately it is here and so I can at last nail down this location confidently. This is made more difficult because Kenneth MacMillan's camera foreshortens the view in comparison to that seen in Streetview. Firstly at 2:10 the Peugeot emerges from the left of shot (that being the north) on Rue Drevet and turns left onto Rue Andre Barsacq.

 

Then at 2:16 we see Ostrakova walking into shot from the right, (that being the south) having her exchange with the man carrying the basket and turning westwards towards the camera facing east.

Then at 2:36 we also see Kirov walking into shot from the right (that being the south). He is clearly following Ostrakova and even at a distance we can see how weary he appears. We suppose that not only has he been following her for some time but with reference to the map also that he has just climbed the flight of stairs that are located just out of shot to the right.

As we observe Kirov in the background, at 2:40 Ostrakova walks westwards towards the camera with the hotel shown to the left.

We'll pick up Ostrakova's journey (when Kirov catches up with her at the bus stop) in the next article.

All Smiley's People images (c) BBC 1982