Time Bandits | 1981
Terry Gilliam's imaginative fantasy manages an epic feel on a limited budget, exemplified by the ambitious aerial view of young time-traveller Kevin's (Craig Warnock) village, which is no more than a stock shot of Harlington in Bedfordshire, a few miles east of Milton Keynes.
The house itself is on Haywood, off Bagshot Road to the south of Bracknell in Berkshire – it's not far from the 'Privet Drive' location from Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone.
The ruined castle, where Napoleon (Ian Holm) enjoys watching little people hit each other, is Raglan Castle, Raglan in Monmouthshire, Wales. The castle we see now, with its sturdy hexagonal keep, known as the Great Tower or the Yellow Tower of Gwent, dates from between the 15th and early 17th Centuries. During the English Civil War, the castle was held by Royalists loyal to King Charles I but was taken by Parliamentary forces in 1646, when it was 'slighted' (deliberately put beyond military use). Following the restoration of King Charles II, the empty Castle became a source of local building materials, turning it into a romantic ruin.
The ‘Time of Legends’ was filmed on bleak Dungeness Beach in Kent – which has been described as Britain's only desert.
The desolate 468-acre estate in the Romney Marshes sits on a peninsula jutting into the English Channel and is famously home to Dungeness Nuclear Power Station. In the shadow of the power station stands the cottage of artist and film director Derek Jarman, who lived here until his death in 1994 and which provided much of the setting for his 1990 film The Garden.
'Ancient Greece', where Kevin meets Agamemnon (Sean Connery), is Aït Ben Haddou near Ourzazate in southern Morocco (conveniently close to the Aloha Golf Course for Connery).
Aït Ben Haddou is a ksar (fortified village) on the former caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains. It's a great example of southern Moroccan earthen clay architecture and in 1987 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It's a familiar location from films such as David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, Ridley Scott's Gladiator, The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah (co-directed by Sergio Leone and Robert Aldrich) and Jewel of the Nile.
The sinking of the Titanic is colourised footage from the excellent 1958 British account of the disaster, A Night To Remember.
