Customer Reviews

Riding the Rails [VHS]

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Riding the Rails is an extraordinary video documentary that recounts how hundreds of thousands of teenagers during the Great Depression left their homes and hopped freight trains back and forth across America. Most came from families that could no longer support them, but some were just kids in search of adventure. The documentary is built around interviews with about a dozen survivors from that time, now in their seventies and eighties. Their moving stories are augmented by pictures, newsreel footage, and excerpts gleaned from thousands of letters contributed to the project by other survivors. The reminiscences are by turns grim and humorous, hopeful and bitter, tragic and filled with wonder. By the end of the film you'll feel as if you're close friends with these former hobo kids. The music is likewise outstanding, mixing vintage railroad songs and social anthems with original tracks. The overall effect is a kind of bracing nostalgia that is not cloying but consciousness-raising in the best sense. "Riding the Rails" is the winner of 18 major film awards, including Best Documentary of 1997 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. If you have any interest in either railroad lore or 20th century U.S. history, you owe it to yourself not to miss this video. ...

If you're interested in what it was like for real people during the Great Depression, buy this video. It's content is excellent, including stills and films of the era and interviews with old-timers who were there and lived it, both men and women. It's story sequence is great, telling how and why young people came to ride the rails: from poverty to adventure and everywhere between, then talking about what it was really like to live that way: good/bad big town/small town, and closing with the various reasons or ways various youth rejoined society or went on in life. Very significant is the soundtrack, which includes high quality recordings of music of the period and/or the situation, often recordings by the original artists. Purchasers of the video may want to consider also getting the book, IRON MEMORIES: RIDING THE RAILS IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION, by the video director's father, Errol Lincoln Uys. The video is great by itself, but with the book they're really a superior pairing.

Sure, the Great Depression is a part of history that has been studied, examined, exposed and studied some more, but until now the story of 250,000 teen hobos who spent years "Riding the Rails" went largely untold.

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

This DVD examines the lives of over a dozen Depression-era, freight-train stowaways who spent many of their teen years on the bum, traveling by rail throughout America looking for something better. But what and why? A very diverse group of former rail riders were interviewed including men and women, white and black, but all were teens at the time. This documentary delves into what motivated them and what it was like to be a teenager "riding the rails". In looking at this small group we do see a pattern and reasons which motivated this relatively large group of underaged runaways to choose such a difficult and risky lifestyle.

There are some photographs and archival photos and movietone-news-style film excerpts from the Depression era shown to give perspective. We also see an excerpt of a feature film "Riding The Rails - Teenagers On The Move" made to dissuade youngsters from taking up the lifestyle. Of course it only encouraged more rail runaways despite the tragic depictions of the film. It seems incomprehensible that so many children would take to riding the rails, but they did. This is their story.

All in all, this is a very worthwhile documentary about an almost forgotten piece of American history.

ABOUT THE DVD:

This DVD is part of the "AMERICAN EXPERIENCE" series produced by WGBH - BOSTON. An interview with the filmmakers is included as well as a "slide-show" featuring Depression-era photos. Web sites of interest are also included. It has the scene selection feature and closed captions available.

I am a history teacher and showed this movie to my students and they really enjoyed it. It talked about childern their age (15).

This documentary tells the heartrending story of how young men and even some young women began hopping freight trains to find work, excitement, adventure and a better life in general during the Great Depression. We get outstanding archival footage as well as quite a bit of recent interview footage with the now elderly people who rode the freight trains back then; and this film taught me quite a lot about their lives at this point in history.

The financial depression that ensued after the stock market crash of 1929 was almost unprecedented; grown men who had never been without a job suddenly found themselves out of work, sometimes with little hope of ever being the family breadwinner again. The burden of making money to support the family often went to the young teenagers, usually just boys but sometimes teenage girls, who had to look literally all over the country to find work and send as much money as they could back home. One African-American man recalls vividly the day when his father told him that they could not afford to feed him anymore and that he would have to strike out on his own despite his still being a teenager. Indeed, the average person hopping freight trains was a hungry, financially desperate teenager who wanted to try their luck in other parts of the country. Yes, a few of the young people wanted adventure and the thrill of being a rebel; but I still had the distinct impression that they also needed the money no matter what they said in that archival footage. They all looked hungry and most of them were quite thin at that time.

Believe it or not, I'm not giving it all away (I don't want to spoil this for you); there's plenty more to learn from this insightful film. Just trying to jump up and onto a moving train often meant risking your life if you fell! We see the long term psychological effects of riding the rails as well as society's varying reactions to the people scrounging for a living as they rode trains from one town to another. Fortunately, there are distinctly bright spots in this story.

The DVD comes with extras. In particular, I liked the interview with writers/directors Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell; and there's a printed excerpt from a book by Errol Lincoln Uys entitled Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression. We get a slideshow of photos with music; and there are a couple of links to websites on the Internet that explore the topic of this film.

I highly recommend this fine documentary that tells the incredibly poignant tale of the teenagers and others who were so down on their luck that they had to ride freight trains all over the nation looking for work often just barely avoiding starvation even when they made their very best efforts. This is particularly useful for anyone studying American history and people who are interested in the Great Depression in particular would do well to add this to their collections.

Words in the book, by the same name, don't create the same images as the DVD does. Here are the real stories of the real people who lived on the rails and survived to tell about it. Spell binding tales of leaving home and being asked to leave... because there was something better, someplace else... because the family could't afford to feed / support another child. Children setting out on their own to seek... who knows what. My teenage son 'got-it' when my Father and he sat down to watch it.

A very powerful DVD about a bygone era that makes our current recession look like a day in the park!
Very informative and educational. I now really understand what my parents generation went through.

This DVD shares the stories of adults who survived the depression and for various reasons, rode the trains as teenagers during that time. Insightful to the realities of the depression for this age group in particular and the whole country in general. Relevant to economic concerns today. It brings a sense of the human side to economic struggles with the potential for inspiring one to understand how people come to find themselves in desperate situations. One can walk away with hope that this too shall pass and become aware that a little compassion goes a long way.

Truthfully, I EXPECTED less. After some of the reviews, I thought I might be setting myself up for disappointment. NOT SO- I love first hand accounts, history from people who have lived thru the experiance. Having lived by railroad tracks most of my life, I often fantisized about the adventure. I would recomend this selection.

Featuring archival footage of the period and a folk song score from Woody Guthrie (and other balladeers of the time), the films' most memorable sequences are the interviews with the now elderly, respectable folks who eked out existences as young hoboes during the Depression, but still recall the sheer romance and adventure of hopping those freights. A heartwarming glimpse into a defining moment for our country, and how a hearty generation adapted.