The Tyne Bridge first appeared on film shortly after its opening in 1928 in a Fox Movietone "talkie", King of England Makes A Speech... Opens a New Bridge at Newcastle.
Since then the bridge has been a popular backdrop for film and TV... a thread 🧵
The Tyne Bridge features in 1939 film noir On the Night of the Fire and 1950 thriller The Clouded Yellow, but it got its first starring role in the terrific 1961 heist movie Payroll, which was shot on location on gritty Tyneside.
A decade later, the Tyne Bridge featured only briefly in Tyneside's most famous film, 1971's Get Carter starring Michael Caine. It's shown in the background during scenes filmed on the Swing and High Level bridges.
If Get Carter is Tyneside's most famous film, The Likely Lads (and superior follow-up Whatever Happened to...?) is its most famous TV show. The Tyne Bridge appears prominently in the 1976 Likely Lads movie, shot while the bridge was blue not green.
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The Tyne Bridge also features in another classic TV show, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, notably in the second series in which the gang, including Jimmy Nail's Oz, return to Tyneside and the bridge is symbolic of coming home.
The Tyne Bridge made another prominent screen appearance in Mike Figgis's 1988 debut movie Stormy Monday, which sees Wallsend-born Sting face-off with Tommy Lee Jones on the High Level Bridge, with the Tyne conspicuous in the background.
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The Tyne Bridge is the setting for final scene of classic 1996 BBC drama Our Friends In The North, in which a virtually unrecognisable Daniel Craig, as Geordie Peacock, exits to a soundtrack of Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis.
The Tyne Bridge also features in Byker Grove, Geordie Shore, Inspector George Gently, Vera, Goal: The Movie... More recently it featured in movies Stan & Ollie and The Duke - although neither was shot on Tyneside and the bridge was inserted via CGI.
reelstreets.com/films/stan-and-ollie/
Perhaps most famously, the Tyne Bridge appears on TV each year as a backdrop to the Great North Run, reminding TV viewers worldwide of the proud achievements of Tyneside.
One last film, the remarkable "Building The New Tyne Bridge". You can watch it at the North East Film Archive:
yfanefa.com/record/16120
Like this thread? You'll love my brand new Tyne Bridge book. It's packed with stories and photos. Please RT!
tynebridgebook.com/
Paul Brown
@paulbrownUK
Writes about stuff: history, football, true crime, rocketbelts. New book: The Tyne Bridge: tynebridgebook.com Newsletter: singulardiscoveries.com
