Carol Burnett (in case anyone doesn’t remember) made the role famous on Broadway before there was a film.
See why:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yB1NHb0cKFo
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SKWk4QWqJg
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=em7mTeoznZ8
It’s a VHS dub of a Kinescope, with some distortion in the '60s sound… but you’ll get caught up in the magic just as you do with Olivier’s movie of Henry V.
You know, I’ve seen Olivier’s “Henry V” and Kenneth Branagh’s, and I don’t know which one I like best. Olivier’s is more colorful, Branagh’s is more gritty, but both are outstanding.
One of the best thing’s about Branagh’s is Brian Blessed! That man was BORN to wear armor! He’s like a human tank!
What I was referring to was actually the ‘trope’ that the movie starts out as if the play were being presented at the Globe, complete with men playing the women… then very quietly the stage backdrops become larger and more realistically drawn, and so we are eased into full reality…
One of the all-time great national propaganda movies (it was made during WWII), and one of the all-time great end-title-music choices – even better than what Spielberg used in Empire of the Sun (to this day I wonder how many film buffs understand what he did).
Ah, I see it now. Thanks.
Another comment: I was a bit surprised by the high-pitched sound of 2102’s whistle. Almost like a European whistle.
Yeah, me too. I was expecting a full-throated roar instead of the high-pitched tone, but I suppose it’s the historically correct whistle for a Reading T-1.
When you come down to it all a whistle’s supposed to do is get your attention and the T-1’s whistle certainly does that.
Compare the Reading ‘sound’ with a typical PRR ‘banshee’ freight whistle… or with what N&W afflicted the A locomotives with.
I think the high sound ‘carries’ better.
Incidentally, Western Maryland had no Northerns.
Although they had some of the very best late 4-8-4s.
The Mighty Potomac!
Mighty all right!
Interesting choice of music for that slide show, the Church of England version of “Nearer My God To Thee.”
Indeed an odd choice.
Maybe they are trying to say it was a titanic locomotive. (Que the rim shot.)
Definitely a mountain mauler fast freight hauler!
Which Overmod is alluding to. Too bad one was not saved.
Reminds me of a review I read years ago concerning a Pennsylvania Railroad video:
“An odd choice of music as the video begins, an orchestral arrangement of ‘A Might Fortress Is Our God,’ or maybe if you’re a Pennsy fan you won’t think so!”
Except Agincourt was fought in a sea of mud (we’re talking Flanders folks - within 100 miles of the Paschendaele of Great War infamy),
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38490600
not on a bright clear day with firm footing.
So Branagh’s film was more accurate
Bur Olivier’s was more inspirational
And the Arrow Storm sends chills down my spine every time I see it (Henry V brought 300,000 arrows with his army - the paperwork (it’s an army, gotta have paperwork) still survives)
DPM famously compared the PRR to the Roman Empire - both dominating their world, being incomparably magnificent in their glory years and building monumental structures designed to last centuries - in a Trains essay
What would you have preferred? An instrumental version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac At Night”?
Nah, the overture to “Tannhauser.” For some reason it makes me think of steam locomotives, not a medieval knight with “issues.”
Coal-hauling 4-8-4s courtesy of Richard Leonard’s Random Steam page:
Reading T-1
https://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/rdg2101_dvl.htm
Western Maryland J-1
I wonder if T-1 5550 will be able to run on Reading & Northern occasionally in the future?
2102 in 2022 - kudos to the photographer on this one!
What can I say? WOW!
Assuming it gets an invite it’s most likely a case of curvature and clearances. As far as I know there’s few places on the R&N the Reading T-1 can’t go. Whether the same would apply to a re-born PRR T1 is a “wait and see” situation.
The big question for T1 5550 is where they can run it to it’s maximum speed and performance. The PRR T1 wasn’t made for ridge-runnin’ in coal country like the Reading T-1 was.
True that. And I know it has a much longer rigid wheelbase as a 4-4-4-4 compared to most, if not all, 4-8-4s, and certainly a longer rigid wheel-base than 2102.
What would be fun is if Amtrak let it run under catenary on portions of the Northeast Corridor on weekends, depending on curvature and turning facilities. I would think it would clear the wires. I know T-1s did not run on the Northeast Corridor in regular service, but it seems most excursions on mainlines lately have been under Amtrak’s auspices. At the same time, even those have been few and far between.
But hope springs eternal. Someday there will be a multi-billionaire who is a steam fan!