6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ealing Power of Steam Trains!, September 22, 2007
This review is from: The Titfield Thunderbolt (DVD)
This is one of my personal favourites from Ealing. The local railway line is threatened with closure (and replacement by a bus service). The village community decides to run the railway themselves, which causes the competing bus owners to engage in some underhand initiatives. This is the Britain of a bygone age, with gentle humour, steam trains, wonderful sunny British countryside and all in glorious colour! The casting is inspired, with lots of nice cameos (one of the best being Stanley Holloway as a boozy philanthropist who is encouraged to invest in the locally-run railway using the argument that he can have a licensed buffet car all day!). Good performances also from Hugh Griffith, John Gregson and Sid James. The enthusiasm of the local vicar for anything to do with steam trains is just wonderful to behold. Highly recommended!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the great and charming Ealing comedies, where the heroes are the old Thunderbolt steam engine and the people of Titfield, March 9, 2009
This review is from: The Titfield Thunderbolt (DVD)
Of the great British comedies that came out in the late Forties and early Fifties, one of my favorites is The Titfield Thunderbolt. There's no hero, no heroine, no romantic shenanigans and not even dominant players. After two generations of dumbing-down humor where the height of hilarity now usually centers on bedtime performance anxiety and flatulence, The Titfield Thunderbolt seems ever more clever, funny, and above all else, charming. Passion there is aplenty...all directed at old steam engines.
When British Rail announces that it's shutting down the Titfield-Mallington branch rail line, the Titfield villagers aren't having it. They organize, (politely, of course) to make the case that they can run the line even if British Rail won't. They get their chance, but have only a month to prove they can turn a profit and be on time. Waiting in the wings are two scheming bus line operators who are planning to make sure the villagers fail. The problems are daunting. They have the engine and the passenger cars, but they must raise ten thousand quid. Vicar Sam Weech, who loves God, his parishioners and steam engines, not necessarily in that order, suggests a raffle, a bake sale and a charity performance of The Mikado. By now we've met many of the villagers, and we love them all. There's the Vicar (George Relph), aging and determined; the young squire, Gordon Chesterford (John Gregson); the wealthy and happy quaffer of spirits, wine and ale, Walter Valentine (Stanley Holloway); the drunk old former railroad man, Dan Taylor (Hugh Griffith), who lives in a crumbling, ancient passenger car; Harry Hawkins (Sid James), who operates a road roller and likes few people; and on we go.
It looks like the villagers might prevail...but the bus company strikes back. The duel on the tracks between the steamroller operated by the tough Hawkins and the steam engine with the elderly vicar at the throttle is, as Jack Black fans so often say, awesome. Even so, with their engine sent down a gully it looks finally that disaster has struck...and then the villagers remember the Titfield Thunderbolt. This old steam engine is so out of date it's been in the Titfield museum for years. It must be watered, fueled and run across country to the tracks if there is a hope of success. Well, there'll be more than a hope.
Charles Crichton keeps this movie moving with such briskness we might forget how skillful he is. Within five minutes he's given us the set-up. Within ten minutes he's introduced most of the characters. He places time-delay second takes in the movie so that we find one situation amusing and charming, then 20 minutes later it comes into play again in a different way that makes us smile even more broadly. If you want to see skillful comedy planning, keep an eye on Dan Taylor's hovel of a home. Crichton let's us know these people much more by what they do than by what they say. The Titfield Thunderbolt is so good, so charming and so gentle because we see just how indomitable these people are going to be. They are faced with problem after problem. With ingenuity, perseverance, good cheer and astonishing improvisation, they overcome. When Crichton sends the people of Titfield and other nearby villages running across fields and dales to give the Thunderbolt a push up hill, it's grand. It takes a village to raise a steam engine. (And while the village of Titfield is fictitious, the movie was shot near the village of Limpley Stoke, an equally fine name, which is not.)
Crichton was a maker of gems. You'll be rewarded if you track down and watch
Hue and Cry (1947),
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), and
The Battle of the Sexes (1959).
Against the Wind (1948) is a fine behind-the-lines adventure set in WWII. He fell out of fashion and spent years in television. John Cleese rescued him for a last, victorious hurrah when he was 78 to co-write and direct
A Fish Called Wanda.
The Titfield Thunderbolt was the first of the Ealing comedies to be shot in Technicolor. In a restored print, all that English bucolic countryside would be just as charming as the old steam engines. Sadly, the version I have from the Region 2
Ealing Comedy DVD Collection wasn't restored. The collection includes two other great comedies, Hue and Cry and Passport to Pimlico.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Relaxed attitudes to health and safety - and booze!, August 28, 2010
This review is from: The Titfield Thunderbolt (DVD)
The Ealing comedies are much beloved, especially by those who remember the 1940s and 1950s in England with a wistful nostalgia - a simpler, more innocent age of fair isle sweaters, kindly vicars and steam trains.
The Titfield Thunderbolt captures all of these themes in a delightful, broad comedy that centres around the attempts of the villagers of Titfield to run their own branch railway service, under threat of closure from British Railways (a nice precursor of Dr Beeching). Local vicar and railway enthusiast Sam Weech and squire Gordon Chesterfield secure backing from bibulous local financier Walter Valentine, on the grounds that train bars are not restricted by normal licensing hours, thus enabling Walter to drink in the morning.
All the village launches into the madcap scheme, as the railway is pitted against rival bus owners. They survive numerous ordeals and sabotages, but tragedy strikes on the eve of their inspection from British Railways when the bus owners finally manage to derail their train beyond repair. No matter, drifter ex railwayman Dan comes to the rescue, tracking down the Titfield Thunderbolt and hijacking it from its display in the museum. His own home (a dilapidated railway carriage) is hastily called into service as a replacement passenger car.
So the villagers are all set to meet the inspectors - will they succeed? The comedy continues to the end, full of innocent enthusiasm, railway mad vicars and goodwill from the local community.
A classic Ealing Comedy.
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