Download Apk Game: Behind the Sets of The Crown

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Behind the Sets of The Crown

Technorati Tags: The Crown Set Locations,The Crown

Are you watching The Crown, Netflix’s $100 million production about the life of Queen Elizabeth? While some people are watching the episodes as they are shown each week, most people are just binge watching Season One’s 10 episodes over a long weekend. That’s what Ben and I did. It helps that Mr. Slippersocks Man majored in History in college – he loves all these historical shows, even if they are basically chick-flicks.

But, The Crown is a bit more than just another glossy royal story. While it is basically about the love story of Elizabeth and Prince Phillip and her sister Margaret and her ill-fated love affair – The Crown’s First Season is also about major political events that happened before and after WWII in England. Much of the detail of the political intrigue in The Crown escapes both Ben and me (Ben’s degree was actually in Middle Eastern Studies, so Royal gossip isn’t exactly his forte.) It did help for me to read several blogs about the ten episodes to understand a lot of the minutiae, especially about Queen Elizabeth’s private secretaries and the different Prime Ministers and advisors. In the end, all the history retold in The Crown makes it just that much more interesting.

We were hooked after the first episode.

And then…there are the visuals.

No expense was spared in recreating the luxe life of the royals. Jewelry and tiaras were faithfully copied (although one blog about Royal Jewelry finds something to criticize about each piece of finery.) The costumes and hats were also copied from vintage photographs of the Royals. And the actress who is playing the Queen is incredible. She has her accent down pat, along with all her mannerisms.

Claire Foy – plays the Queen. Doesn’t she look just like Queen Elizabeth? Well, not here in real life she doesn’t.

Here Claire is next to the real Queen – in the wedding dress and reproduction jewelry. She looks much more like the Queen here, doesn’t she?

And dressed up for an event – Foy captures the Queen in her fur and tiara. But, it’s not the facial features that captures the likeness, it’s how the actress moves and holds her hands and how she stares and smiles. Foy will be up for a Bafta, for sure.

A collection of vintage watches used by the stars. No detail was too small to be ignored.

Some of the cast.

There are standouts in the cast – like John Lithgow as PM Churchill. He is so perfect, you forget it’s not really Churchill. Again, it’s not the facial appearance. Lithgow is over 6’4”, while Churchill was quite short. But somehow – Lithgow becomes the Prime Minister.

Also, I especially love Jared Harris who plays the King, Bertie. Some of the best scenes are the ones that the ill King is in. His death was so sad to watch, I could only imagine how the nation must have felt, something I had never thought of before. Was his death as hurtful as Diana’s had been?

And then, there is the last episode of Season 1. A tear-jerker , it is about the forced breakup of Princess Margaret and her boyfriend, Peter Townsend.

Besides the fabulous acting, I’ve been enjoying the sets, as always. There are so many different ones, and most were filmed on location in grand houses as opposed to on a sound stage.

I especially got a big kick out of a few of the sets – some of them are very familiar to long time readers!

This story is a look at some of the great sets of The Crown. I’ll break it up in a few parts to keep it brief.

First, a bit of history:

Over the years I’ve written about quite a few movie houses. One that I loved was the French Chateau featured in Bel Ami, a small, indie movie starring Uma Thurman and Rob Pattinson.

The movie Bel Ami was based on the famous French novel of the same name. To recreate their French townhouse, the film crew rented this grand house in the English countryside. The main drawing room of the house was re-wallpapered in blue for the movie, instead of its normal pink, and a houseful of French furniture replaced the usual English pieces.

Here, the library was changed. The set designer covered the books up with a faux wall to create a bedroom out of the adjoining library.

When I first wrote about this house in Bel Ami HERE, I never imagined I would ever see it again. Little did I know!!!

A few years later, I was watching another indie – Hyde Park On Hudson – about F.D.R. and the time spent at his country home. It was amusing to realize that the house at Hyde Park was filmed at none other than the same English Country Manor that Bel Ami was filmed at.

Here is the same living room as it was decorated for Hyde Park On Hudson. Chintz covered French furniture was used. They even recovered the same French chaise that Bel Ami had used from the house. A new rug was added, along with many of the house’s actual possessions and art work. The blue wallpaper that was put up for Bel Ami was removed and the original pink wallpaper was used in the FDR movie. Notice the furniture. You’ll see this all again in The Crown!!

FDR: Bill Murray actually became FDR in this movie with fake teeth and a fake mole. The set designer hung chintz curtains in the drawing room.

FDR: The library with the shelves showing. In Bel Ami – the shelves were covered.

FDR: In the dining room, the house’s gorgeous tapestries were left hanging on the walls. Here’s the story about the FDR movie HERE.

Here is what the house where these two movies were filmed looks like. Rather stark, it was built in the 1770s and it sits on over 100 acres outside of London in Hertfordshire.

While watching The Crown and enjoying the costume and set designs, I was so excited to see this same house was used once again, this time as Clarence House!! This piqued my interest and I started concentrating on the interiors more. The Crown’s Production Designer is Martin Childs, who won an Academy Award for Art Direction for Shakespeare in Love. Besides seeing this familiar house in The Crown, I noticed a few more very familiar houses.

Clarence House:

As you know, Clarence House was built in 1830 for the Duke of Clarence. It was the first home of Princess Elizabeth and her husband Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. Philip decorated it and readied it for their family, to the tune of 70,000 pounds – then quite a princely amount. He loved living there and considered it his first “proper home” since, although he was a Royal cousin to Elizabeth and a Prince of Greece, he had lived a very austere and impoverished life.

Original: What the living room in the house actually looks like, with its pink wallpaper and blue wainscot. The marble fireplace is a focal point, as are the tall windows and columns. You will notice that most of the mansions used for film locations are usually a hodgepodge of generations worth of furnishings and really need updating!

And here is how the house was used to stand in for Clarence House:

Clarence House: In the living room at Clarence House, Princess Margaret – doing two things she does throughout the series: talking on the telephone and smoking! She is a chair smoker, as was her father and grandmother. Her mother and the Queen did not smoke, thank God!

Clarence House: The Queen meets PM Winston Churchill for the first time. You can see the way the house was decorated for The Crown: slipcovered chintz furniture, which I love, and a new needlepoint rug. Some of the furniture from the house was reused like the console tables that flank the doors. Some of the art work was also reused, while other canvases were not. The production crew did reuse the piano and the curtains. What is interesting is that this rug looks like the same exact one used for the FDR movie. I also noticed several pieces of furniture that were used in both movies – I assume the Production crews rent movie props from the same companies.

Clarence House: The desk is needed for the work the Royals do. Note: The interior scenes of The Crown were filmed in dark tones, without much light. I tried to brighten up the screencaps as best as I could, but I’m afraid, sometimes the photos are not the best!!

Clarence House: New art work flanks the marble mantel, but the house’s original mirror was used.

Clarence House: Through the door is the library. That room was used as the bedroom in BelAmi.

Original: What the library actually looks like.

Clarence House: The crew moved the sofas from the house’s drawing room to use in the library. The tiny TV was set up in this room. Another thing the royal family did all the time was to watch TV on these tiny early models.

Original: The room outside the drawing room and library. Notice the gorgeous clock on the stand at the left. This was reused for The Crown.

Clarence House: This room was used to walk from one scene to another. Here Philip waits for Elisabeth after her first meeting with Churchill. Everything was reused, as is, including the beautiful clock on a stand.

Original: The dining room is another mess with too much – stuff, like the lamps on the pedestals. The tapestries in the dining room are incredible though.

Clarence House: The table was extended and the lamps were removed. A crystal chandelier was added. Notice the painting to the right of the mantel. The one from the house was removed and a smaller one was placed there instead – see the faded wallpaper? Too funny!!!