writers_reign Not for the first time and probably not the last it seems that I've been watching a different film to the majority of people who have posted a review here. I recall seeing this film on TV when I was in my teens and being disappointed. Then I saw the DVD in a Charity Shop figured, what the hey, bought it, and checked the reviews here on IMDb. They painted such a glowing picture it convinced me I was mistaken so I put it in the DVD player with high hopes. Alas, seems I was right all along. For one thing, apart from Stanley Holloway Ealing is fielding very much a second or even third eleven and when you give pedestrian actors a pedestrian screenplay the result is ... yes, I can see you're ahead of me. John Gregson was as wooden as usual, so much so he could easily have doubled as one of the sleepers on the track. The females were unknown to me and presumably sunk without trace. All in all a waste of 84 minutes.

Neil Welch This delightful piece of 1950s English whimsy portrays not so much a time and place gone by as a time and place which perhaps never quite existed.Visually, it is a colourful picture of rural England at its most beautiful, forming a backdrop for a gentle story of "big" business trying to prevent the small village of Titfield from re-establishing its branch line.The story, which feels like nothing so much as several episodes from the earliest of the Thomas The Tank Engine books, though flimsy, nonetheless has sufficient charm to hold the interest throughout. The cast, drawn from England's finest post-war talent, is absolutely fine. The action is well directed (do watch out for the rubber engine during the night-time run through the streets of Titfield!) and the geography is always well conveyed.But, more than anything else, this is a film which could only ever have been made in England in the 1950s.

ackstasis 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.

The_Secretive_Bus 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.