The Titfield Thunderbolt

The Titfield Thunderbolt

The Titfield Thunderbolt

The Titfield Thunderbolt

This delightful comedy would be a joy in black-and-white. In Technicolor it's a real treat. The vividly English landscapes are used imaginatively to augment the appeal of the trains themselves. Color is drawn upon inventively to set the moods for various scenes and to cast a wonderful spell of romance, of firmly delineated villains and purest-motived heroes in a classic tale of St George versus the dragon. T.E.B. Clarke's wittily observed, richly characterized script offers a wonderfully unlikely St George in the local vicar. His squire is the young squire himself, his champion a friendly bishop. The dragons are the local bus proprietors. Very fitting. I love trains, hate buses. Any movie that toes this line is going to get 100% of my vote anyway. But, additionally, the acting here is so winning, so endearing, so priceless. Not a single player is out of step. All have their opportunities — even Naunton Wayne (in a more or less straight role) and Sid James (as a heavy) — and all make the most of them. It's good to see George Relph (a noted actor on stage, Relph made only 14 movies between 1916 and 1959) in the leading role, though Stanley Holloway's fans may be a bit disappointed to find his contribution is comparatively small and lines up as more of a character part than that of a clown. Nonetheless, he does make the most of some delightfully amusing lines and bits of business and does share some glorious moments of inspired slapstick with Hugh Griffith (even if topped by Wensley Pithey's breathless recital of their collective misdemeanors). Producer Michael Truman and director Charles Crichton have obviously made a considerable effort to cast Clarke's wonderful parade of village types with just the right players. Gabrielle Brune, hardly a household name (she made only 21 films between 1930 and 1972, mostly in very small roles) seems ideal as the local hostelry's sympathetic barmaid. Similarly, television actor John Rudling (who made only five films of which this is the third), delivers some of the script's most telling lines with exactly the right tone of brusque officiousness. Of course, people like Reginald Beckwith as the stumped union man and Michael Trubshawe as the "I was about to add" public servant play much their usual characters. But they do it so well and with such precision, who's complaining? Crichton's direction rates as beautifully paced and deftly assured as ever, whilst Slocombe's wondrous photography comes over so pleasingly you really need to see the movie three or four times to appreciate its richness. Auric's score is a crowd-pleaser too, whilst Seth Holt's editing seems as polished as spun gold. Produced on an admirably lavish budget, The Titfield Thunderbolt can be summed up as one of the most brilliant, enduring gems of British comedy. A must for train buffs of course. But equally a superb entertainment for all of us who like to see individuals win against bureaucracy, underdogs defeat "progress".

If you were going to name a few things that were inherently cinematic, what would they be? Beautiful women, violence, smoke, water, dance, fireworks. and trains. Why trains? I suppose you might ask why any of these, but trains just seem such an odd thing for the cinematic eye to be drawn to. It isn't as if it is easy, in fact the technical challenges are significant, and we see the same shots over and over again: the drive wheels, the edge of the assembly whooshing by and away, the locomotive looking ahead and entering a tunnel... And yet from the very first year, the camera and locomotive have been buddies. You know, you could say that both compartmentalize in some technological niche, or both transport but its schoolishy ridiculous. We like em in movies and that's that. So here we have a standard form: the town (nearly always a British town) that rallies to save some icon of identity against the march of mindless bureaucracy. And this time that icon is a train. Three and a half trains in fact, and two of them quite pretty. The first is rather lovely and is wrecked. I saw this together with Ingrid Bergman in "Jekyll and Hyde" and the similarities are striking. Just striking. The second is a dull beast made interesting by taking to the streets in a wild drunken joy ride. The third is the movie's namesake, an ancient machine taken out of a museum and piloted by two old enthusiastic clergymen to satisfy a plot device designed only as an excuse to create the image. It is a small, stately matron like the old woman who appears precisely when it does. The half a loco is an old fashioned steam powered steamroller that has a couple fights with the Bergman machine and wins. If this were an "experimental" film, and the people were somehow neutron bombed out of it, it would be pretty interesting with these machines as abstract characters. But you do have the people in their odd, ordinary lives, leaving those lives at every opportunity to service these machines. So you'll have to erase them in your mind, your eye. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

A film which the whole family can enjoy, not Ealing's best but you can't but smile at the innocence of it all. The film's direction is nicely done. The screenplay is good, but very predictable; This doesn't hurt the picture. The acting is nice, you feel a sense of community. Overall, another Ealing film for the whole family to enjoy.

The little village of Titfield has grown up around the railway service that runs around the surrounding countryside and towns. However this service is threatened when British Rail pull the plug and a new company open a bus service. Outraged by the loss of the service, some locals turn to the rich retired businessman Valentine with the hope that he will give them the money to fund the train privately. He refuses until he is told that a bar on a train has no legal hours to stick to - allowing his drinking to begin earlier than ever! With the train back on the rails things look good - however the owners of the bus company have no intention of making it easy for them to operate. Any film from the Ealing studio is going to be worth some of my time and generally I seem to enjoy them. That was the case here. It may be far from the strongest of the films from this stable but it is still a quite enjoyable little bit of whimsy. Generally the plot allows for fairly amiable bits of action that is amusing as much for the characters as for any scripted jokes. The film exists in a time and place that doesn't really exist in England anymore - in fact I would question is such an idyllic place ever existed, or at least existed in such a biscuit box picture. However the setting really helps the film be even more charming and enjoyable. There are occasional jokes at the railways' expense but generally the humour is not barbed or targeted - it is just quaint. Having said that there is a quite sharp dig at the clichéd union rep - cloth cap and all! The cast is roundly fine - whether it be the whimsy of Holloway's boozed-up Valentine, the amiable humour of Tearle's Bishop or Sid James' rough steamroller driver. There may not be much in the way of real characters but they all do their roles well enough for the material and fit into the whimsical idea of the villagers that I had in my head. The railway footage is also pretty good and fans of the railways will be pleased by some great footage of the trains as well as it moving through full colour countryside. Overall this is not a hilarious film nor is it one of the better films to come out of Ealing, but it is still funny and amusing at points. The style of humour perfectly fits the postcard image that the action is set in - a setting that is made more interesting by it's historical interest in terms of it being a view of England that simply doesn't exist anymore in this way. An enjoyable bit of whimsy that will please Ealing fans and perhaps win some new ones.

A very curious beast, this. It contains many of the trademarks of other Ealing comedies - the little people facing oppressive civil servant types and capitalism, lightly fantastical moments, a sense of community spirit etc. - yet these elements fail to gel this time round. In fact it's probably the only Ealing comedy to really fall flat on its face. The plot concerns a small, out-of-date railway that is due to be closed down and the local community's attempts to keep it running in the face of monumental adversity. Part of the problem lies in the fact that it's difficult to empathise with the characters' plight; I'd imagine that whereas most people would like to get rich quick (The Lavender Hill Mob, for example), few have dreams of running their own railway. Also, the main characters want to keep the railway going purely out of a desire to uphold tradition, when alternative forms of transportation are far more efficient and a Hell of a lot safer. We're meant to be on the side of the vicar and his chums trying to run a railway on their own but one can't help but think that the bureaucracy are right on this occasion and that the heroes just aren't capable of carrying out this great task. Whilst the problems that beset them are admittedly the fault of an exterior menace - mainly a couple of lads who run a bus route (ooo, scary) - the "goodies" thwart their foes at every turn by... erm... ramming them off the track (nice), or tying the train to the engine by rope (thereby posing a massive safety risk to all the passengers). Then there's the bit where Sid James shoots holes in the water refill tank and they need to find a new source of water - the river holds the apparent solution, so the drivers bang on the windows of the train and order all the passengers out so that they can help them (!) by raiding the local farm (!!) for containers to carry water back and forth until the engine's filled. Though it says a lot about the community spirit, it's a bit unlikely that the passengers would be willing to expend physical labour on what was supposed to be a quiet journey that they themselves have paid money for (the one man who refuses to do it - saying quite rightly that he shouldn't have to - is painted as the black sheep!). It makes it difficult to believe that everybody should be so keen for the railway to continue when every journey they go on is fraught with safety hazards and delays; most people would sod it for a game of soldiers and get the bus instead. And by the time people are flocking to help push the train along the tracks (a replacement engine from the local museum, note, and therefore even deadlier than the one before) to get it past its government inspection you wonder whether these people should have something better to do with their lives than fret about maintaining what seems to be the most inefficient and dangerous train service that ever existed. In fact the one argument in their favour - that replacing the one train with loads of bus routes and motorways would have huge environmental concerns and destroy the countryside - is mentioned once and then forgotten about; it seems that we're supposed to support them simply because, well, they want to run a railway and it's quite a nice hobby. I know it's supposed to be whimsical and all that but I just couldn't help but think that these characters - with their hearts in the right places - were an utter menace. Of the cast only Stanley Holloway shines as a wonderfully eccentric chap mad enough to finance the affair so long as the train has a 24 hour bar inside, and there is a wonderful sequence with a train driving down the roads of a local town (one of those magical moments Ealing did so well), but the story doesn't have strong enough foundations and the pace drags awfully (its slim 80 minutes seem to last forever). Not even the old English charm can save it. Probably worth a single viewing but you probably won't go back to it in a hurry.

The other comments posted on this site are uniformly enthusiastic. Surely, there needs to be some balance: at least one dissenting voice amidst the chorus of acclaim. I would like to deplore this film for its stock of hand-me-down British eccentrics, its formulaic plot and its absurd sentimentalisation of rural England - but if I did I would be talking drivel. It is an utter delight and after watching it you just feel happier. If rural communities like this never actually existed then they should have done. Of course this movie won't appeal to everyone, but if you are sufficiently sympathetic to the subject matter to actually put it on your DVD player, it is inconceivable that you won't be beguiled by it. If this movie needs at least one bad review, I am afraid it will have to wait a bit longer for it.

The Ealing comedies have never looked as wonderful as in 'The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953),' the first from the studio to be filmed in Technicolor. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe captures the sheer magnificence of the British countryside, every frame alive with the vibrant colours of the hills, the trees and the skies. The film was directed by Charles Crichton, who had earlier achieved success with 'The Lavender Hill Mob (1951),' and was penned by T.E.B. Clarke, who also wrote the outrageously whimsical 'Passport to Pimlico (1949),' encapsulating the wit and optimism of the British sense of humour in a way that typifies why such classic comedy gems are still treasured more than fifty years later. The story was inspired by real events, when local volunteers restored and operated the narrow gauge Talyllyn Railway in Wales. The residents of the small village of Titfield rely daily on trains to commute to work each day; so much so that the steam locomotive has become an icon of the town. However, when British Rail announces the intended closure of the service, the villagers are understandably devastated, and one resident, railway enthusiast Vicar Sam Weech (George Relph), decides to purchase the line and run it locally. Employing the funding of the wealthy and amiably-drunken Walter Valentine (Stanley Holloway), who is easily persuaded by the promise of an early-morning bar on the train, Sam and the other enthusiastic villagers convince the Ministry of Transport to offer them a one month trial, at the end of which their ability to run a train service will be determined. The only two men in town who don't approve of this daring venture are Pearce and Crump (Ewan Roberts and Jack MacGowran), the owners of a bus service, who plan to gain from the closure of the train service, and will try anything to prevent it from running again. 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' shares many of its themes with a lot of the other Ealing comedies, most namely the notion of a small community taking on the "Big Guys" {also found in 'Passport to Pimlico' and 'Whisky Galore!'} and the potentially destructive forces of industrial progress {see also 'The Man in the White Suit (1951)'}. The acting is fun and light-hearted, and each of the characters possesses their own eccentricities, which makes them all equally enjoyable to watch. Considering its nature as a comedy, I was surprised to find that the film has some genuine moments of suspense, scenes that would not have seemed out-of-place in a Hitchcock film. I found myself gripping the seat in the sequence where the train passengers must disembark to collect water for the heating engine (after the water-tank is cunningly sabotaged), and also where the weak coupling between the engine and the carriage threatens to snap. The frequent use of rear-projection, which is relatively effective throughout the film, also reminded me of the Master of Suspense. It's an interesting comparison, I think.