diff --git a/Lib/urllib.py b/Lib/urllib.py
index a4847365e12..c3da7bfe004 100644
--- a/Lib/urllib.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib.py
@@ -326,12 +326,12 @@ class URLopener:
         host, file = splithost(url)
         if not host:
             return addinfourl(open(url2pathname(file), 'rb'),
-                              headers, 'file:'+pathname2url(file))
+                              headers, 'file:'+file)
         host, port = splitport(host)
         if not port \
            and socket.gethostbyname(host) in (localhost(), thishost()): 
             return addinfourl(open(url2pathname(file), 'rb'),
-                              headers, 'file:'+pathname2url(file))
+                              headers, 'file:'+file)
         raise IOError, ('local file error', 'not on local host')
 
     # Use FTP protocol