Smiley's People - Paris Locations (Part Five)

We're back with Part Five of our continuing series of articles examining the various Paris locations where filming took place for Smiley's People. And at last poor Madame Ostrakova finally makes it home! After walking all over Paris in parts 1-4 she deserves to put her feet up for a bit but unfortunately, as we know, things are about to take a turn for the worse. I'll let Chris take up the story...

At 17:10 we see into Madame Ostrakova's apartment where she is meeting with Otto Leipzig. 

If you look closely the viewer can see her to the right with Leipzig and in the same dress she wears during the interior shots. That is the location used for the interiors viewed from outside but the design of the windows don't match those seen in the exterior shots that follow. The four panes of glass shown are not broken by horizontal bars and the wrought ironwork is considerably more ornate than any I've seen in the other sequences.

At 20.54 we see the outside of Madame Ostrakova's home for the first time and IMDb confirms that this scene together with more in successive episodes was filmed in Rue de Jarente, Paris 4 and not in the 15th district where le Carré set it. Examination of the episode and Streetview confirms that it's at number 6, which is not in fact a residence in itself but a courtyard containing both individual and communal living accommodation.

Just inside the courtyard and to the right is the guardian house for the rest of the residences. It is from here at 21:02 that Madame La Pierre alerts Ostrakova to the two officials who have been making enquiries. 

This article discusses the courtyard found at number 6 (and that next door at number 4) whilst this video briefly mentions it at 26:28 - this comparison still has been obtained.

At 21:07 in a reflection in a window we see the official (below left) and then we get a direct shot at 21:21 (below right) so we see what Madame Ostrakova sees.

The name of the business cannot be read in it's entirety but we can piece together SOLEIL D'ENC..and you'll notice that's followed by the symbol that still defies my searching of cyrillic and greek orthography websites to identify. I've been back to Societe.com to look for details of a closed business without success. Soleil means sun, there's obviously photographs in the windows and I wondered if it might have been a (rather down at heel) travel agent.

Obviously the goal here is to identify the window through which Ostrakova serruptitiously watches and as a prelude find the location of the travel agent. The best clue being the balcony railing. The trouble was I found that Streetview showed that there's no balconies on any of the buildings on Rue De Jarente or on any of the nearby streets shown. And I was stumped for a while until I realised that Streetview doesn't show it all, only where one of their camera cars can go. So I found this:

This is Rue Caron, which as Control's map shows runs from Rue St. Antoine in the south to Rue de Jarente in the north and in between crosses the small square of Marche St. Catherine. The building is at number 8 and is today Chez Josephine. This photograph is taken from the south and in the background that's the Salento Marais restaurant on Rue De Jarente.

Now we'll use Streetview to look south from Rue de Jarente and you'll see something familiar.

The new pedestrian sign gets in the way a bit but if we turn around from there we see this:

Now obviously this image shows number 6 and the picture has been taken from the camera on the roof of the Google Map car. Given the view of the official being watched outside 8 Rue Caron and the filming of Madame Ostrakova through the window it must be that Simon Langton chose his camera position authentically and placed it on the street, looking in through one of the windows shown above covered with a shutter. Those shutters must offer some privacy for the residents of Madame La Pierre's guardian house but in autumn of 1981 thay were opened for the filming of Smiley's People and we see that in addition to the shutters they have vertical bars.

The next passage may unfortunately cause difficulties for the reader as it has been excised entirely from the edited version of Smiley's People. At 21.57 we see Madame Ostrakova emerging from the entrance to number 6 and in the distance is the squat looking house at 9 Rue des Sevigne.

As she crosses Rue de Jarente, Kenneth MacMillan pans his shot to the left and behind her we glimpse the maroon and cream awning of the Auberge de Jarente at number 7. This Streetview reveals that a cafe remains but without the distinctive awning.

The camera continues to pan left until Madame passes behind the black car. We see her through its rear window whilst we observe the official watching her.

Madame Ostrakova rounds the corner previously identified onto Rue Caron in the direction of the yellow postbox.

In back of shot, the len's forshortening is in evidence again as behind the tree we can make out the green awning (now red) of a restaurant on Rue d'Omesson on the other side of Marche St. Catherine...

At this point the direction of shot helpfully changes to show Madame posting letter number 2, we see the building at 8 Rue de Jarente behind her and the black car from which she concludes she is being spied on. 

The car is only partially visible but it is in fact the Peugeot 504 that will be seen in Remy Julienne's stunt that we're building up to. By way of proof, here's a view of its interior pillar showing that distinctive interior moulding that may be matched with the capture of her crossing the road.

The postbox seems to be of the type shown below, with a separate compartment on the right for destinations further afield. Streetview shows there is no postbox present today and I don't know if it was placed specifically for filming or has been removed subsequently.

And there unfortunately we must leave it as we've run completely out of internet. Well almost!!

There's just a few bytes left to try to clear up a loose end. Going back to Part 2 we failed to identify the location of the bar where Kirov took Madame Ostrakova. We were able to catch a glimpse of the bar's exterior at the top of this picture.

Could it, in fact, have been Auberge de Jarente? Whilst she would have been even more uncomfortable being seen with him in the bar across the road, logistically it would have aided the production. Unfortunately not. Whilst the Auberge's awning is cream letters on maroon, Kirov's bar is clearly painted in the reverse. At the time, I did check the other establishments on Place du Marche Sainte Catherine without being able to find a match. The search for this location continues.

Next time: Karla tries to flatten the old lady...

All Smiley's People images (c) BBC 1982