Can’t forget that the locomotive sounds in the movie “Polar Express” were recorded from Pere Marquette 1225. Per a magazine article (Trains, I think), even the process of changing the bulb in the headlight is based on reality - SRI videoed a bulb being changed after the recording crew had left. How it was pulled off in the movie - by the engine crew while in motion - was hardly accurate, but the changing of the bulb it self is correct.
A unique ad, from 1962 (per http://www.vintageadsandstuff.com/adsmaidenform.html ):
http://www.vintageadsandstuff.com/viewmaidenform9.jpeg
The New York Central’s 3rd-rail electrified suburban trains and I believe the wye at Spuyten Duyvil were background to the 1967 TV-movie “The Borgia Stick”, starring Inger Stevens and Don Murray, among others:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061419/
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borgia_Stick : “Shot in New York City, the film was one of the highest-rated events of the 1966–1967 season.[1] The film was the first-ever “made-for-TV” movie.[2]” The surprise twist ending occurs along the tracks . . . [:-,]
- Paul North.
That Girl’s opening footage was shot from the back of a train on the tracks that parallel I-95 at the present location of Secaucus Junction, NJ. If the train was actually going forward, it would be on the wrong track, but more problematic is that if you look closely, all the vehicles on the nearby I-95 are all backing up very quickly. They simply ran the film backwards to get the illusion of going forward on the track.
Now this is the opening for That Girl, who moved from Brewster, NY, to Manhattan. I am still trying to figure out why that would involve a train in New Jersey moving away from Manhattan. The purist would have wanted to see footage of going down the tracks of MTA’s Harlem line, towards the Big Apple.
Baltimore & Ohio’s 4-4-0 no. 25 “William Mason” was used in The Great Locomotive Chase and Raintree County, among other films. I’m pretty sure that’s also the engine they used in Gods and Generals. In Gods and Generals, she was supposed to represent an RF&P loco; but in the film, her tender lettering is V&T. Considering the fact that the V&T was in Nevada and hadn’t been built in 1863, that’s not very plausible. Yes, there was also a Virginia & Tennessee, but it was a couple hundred miles away and (I think) used a different gauge, so it’s not likely that the RF&P had borrowed the engine. Incidentally, the fake stock cars in the film also carried V&T lettering. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just slap some impermanent paint on the tender and add four characters: R F & P?
Of course, that’s not the worst problem with that film.
Tom
Yeah, I was wondering about that “V&T” marking on the locomotive in “Gods and Generals” myself. You’re right, not the worst problem with that film. Too short for a mini-series, WAY too long for a feature film, too much redundancy, (OK we know Stonewall’s a devout Christian, you don’t have to tell us over and over and over) , too much talk, not enough action, I could go on and on. It was all downhill from that wonderful opening with Mary Pfahl singing “Going Home” and those beautiful flags.
Still, it had its moments. Someone should have gotten more agressive with the editing.
You’re being kind. The editor (who was the same guy who did a pretty good job with the companion film, Gettysburg) should have used a meat cleaver. I think somebody else got involved and gave him bad advice. Interesting that the closed captioning for the hearing impaired was very good on G&G, but it was laughably HORRIBLE on Gettysburg. But I digress.
Tom
ACY, I agree with you on “Gettysburg”, I enjoyed that one tremendously. Well, I thought Martin Sheen was miscast as General Lee, but he was OK when you got used to him. I just didn’t think he was awesome enough in bearing to pull off the Lee character. I didn’t think his forced southern accent was all that good either. I live in Virginia and know what Virginians should sound like, although it’s debateable what they sounded like in the 1860’s.
Now, Charlton Heston, who was still alive and in good health at the time, HE would have made an awesome Lee!
Not so sure about Heston. Robert Duvall just about nailed it in G&G. Too bad that movie had too many other flaws. Agree Sheen (a fine actor in the right role, by the way) wasn’t the best choice. The accent was wrong, as you say, but I also had a hard time looking at him and believing he was Lee. Maybe he needed to stand on a box when he berated Jeb Stuart. And maybe he should have sat on a telephone book when he was in the saddle. Lower camera angles (looking up at him) would have helped. Too bad G&G’s poor showing at the box office ensured that the third film would not be made.
Back to other films: A film made in France, The Red Shoes (late '40’s or early '50’s), featured quite a few American-built SNCF 141-R Mikados in context, plus the charms of Norma Shearer. Hard to beat that.
Tom
Hi ACL (Tom)!
Oh yes, “The Red Shoes.” Fine, fine movie. Oh, that was MOIRA Shearer, not Norma Shearer. Norma was retired from films by that time, and actually Moira wasn’t to far away from retiring from dance herself, which led to the rise of Margot Fonteyn, a great ballerina herself.
The BEST movie involving French railroads is obviously “The Train” with Burt Lancaster. Super film with a very powerful ending. “Was all this worth the cost?”
The realism and effort put into that movie makes it one of my favorite movies of all time. Considering the technology, they did a fabulous job. And a great view of European railroads under steam. A somber film, spectacularly done.
Edit: Looking around Railpics, I found these. Pretty powerful.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=285148&nseq=0
Hey Firelock —
Sorry. Got my Shearers mixed up. Whether it’s Norma or Moira, Mr. Lancaster couldn’t hold a candle to either one, and I don’t care whether he could dance. But you’re right about The Train.
As long as we’re on the other side of the pond, how about Sean Connery atop the train in The Great Train Robbery (1978)? He did his own stunts, so that was really him eating all that coal smoke and nearly losing the package that contained his change of clothes. Also from England, The Wrong Box (1966) has a brief section with a very unusual & humorous train wreck. Plus Michael Caine, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Peter Cooke, John Mills, Sir Ralph Richardson, and Nanette Newman. Can’t beat it.
Tom
Just remembered another American one that was nothing but foolish fun, and strangely ignored a few years ago when TRAINS did a special article on trains in movies: Ticket To Tomahawk, starring RGS 4-6-0 no. 20, with Dan Dailey & Anne Baxter in supporting roles, was an improbable comedy western, and it was a lot of innocent fun. The railroad scenes certainly don’t reflect the realities of real life on the rails, but it’s an escapist comedy, so who cares?
By the way, I live in Maryland where I’m close enough to hear a lot of Virginia accents, so I do agree about Martin Sheen’s problems in getting that right.
Tom
Speaking of Sean Connery, how about those Orient Express scenes from the Bond Film From Russia with Love? While many of the shots are of a low drivered ten-coupled that wouldn’t have been heading the OE, There are quite a few shots of high wheeled locomotives streaking by.
Recently, Skyfall was another Bond film with a good dose of trains.
Hi Tom!
Not trying to drift too far off-subject but I’m reminded of something.
When I was in the Marines I was watching a Civil War themed Western with some friends, many of whom were Southerners. When the lead Confederate said something to the Yankee officer on the order of “Suh, this wo-wa will nevah be o-vah!” the Southern boys started laughing uproariously. As they explained it to me the “way to do a southern accent is to figure out the easiest way to say a word, then say it that way. don’t force it!”
At any rate, historians believe regional accents had developed by the time of the Civil War, but are a lot more pronounced today then they were in the 1860’s. Since he was from Alexandria. Va. and not from the deep South there’s a good possibility Lee may not have had much of what we’d consider a southern accent in this day and age.
OK, enough of that. Back to trains.
Wayne
Wayne
In the movie A League of their Own the passenger train scenes were filmed at the Illinois Railway Museum using the Nebraska Zepher on IRM’s mainline.
Hello again, Wayne —
Southern speech is efficient. Yankee English doesn’t have a 2nd person plural, but “y’all” (not “you all”) fills that gap very neatly in the Southern vernacular, just as “you’ns” (not “you ones”) accomplishes the same goal in Pennsylvania-ese. You can always tell when a Yankee is trying to affect a Southern accent. They use “you all” as the second person singular. And just so we don’t get too far off the thread, how many Pennsylvania-based films have “you’ns” written into the script? Probably not many.
I would also suggest that Lee was a relatively well educated man, and his speech was likely closer to the King’s English than many of his less privileged Virginia neighbors. In Russia at that time, there were aristocrats who spoke French and knew very little, if any, Russian. Of course, my ideas about Lee’s speech are just speculation. I’m not a linguist.
Tom
There’s a 2 part episode of Laverne & Shirley where they’re traveling from Milwaukee to Canada that shows about 5 different trains during the course of the trip. Some like an Amtrak shot weren’t even possible during the early 60’s setting of the show.
Somebody mentioned the fact that RR’s are not the only institutions that get short shrift in the accuracy department. In MIDWAY, Charleston Heston, takes off in one kind of plane, flies to the target in another, and bombs the bejesus out of the enemy in yet another. At least I think that’s how it goes. I can’t bear to watch that thing again. And I think they were all post-Midway aircraft. There’s a battle that cries out for a new film (not a remake of the Heston film). CGI could be used to beautiful effect.
How many postwar tanks were used in the equally disastrous BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1965)?
Tom
Similarly in the ads for it a few years ago, the movie Pearl Harbor showed Japanese planes over several destroyers that looked like Spruances. There was no doubt that it wasn’t worth seeing and that sealed the deal.
They did some amazing things with models during the 1940’s. Was hard to get the movement of aircraft to look convincing but with ships, they did some amazing things back then. Kind of a shame that cheap looking CGI has ended that.
Agree CGI is often pretty bad. But I hold out a lot of hope for it in the future. The PRR Duplex in LEMONY SNICKETT was a sort of Impressionist version of the real thing, and the Berkshire in POLAR EXPRESS wasn’t really intended to look 100% real either, but they do show that future Improvements in the technology, if properly applied, could give us a new look at an NYC Hudson or a [fill in your own favorite here] on the big screen.
At last! We’ve gotten back to RR’s in film!
Tom