Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful film, wonderful acting, 3 May 2008
The Railway Children is essentially a film about people who are not afraid to care about each other without expecting anything in return. The story probably seems to many people today to be an unlikely fantasy. Is it really possible that a group of children would take the time to go around town and collect birthday presents for some guy who works on the railway? Well, when you consider the film is set over 100 years ago, it's quite possible. What else did kids have to do with their time when the most advanced consumer product was the pocket watch? The day was still 24 hours long but there was no TV, mobile phones or boy bands to waste your time on. Back then, people probably had the time to be kind to each other and they could do it without fear of being scammed.
The children's acting is extraordinarily good. Jenny Agutter shines in her first major film role and Sally Thomsett is the most natural child actor I've seen to date. The adults do a good job too with Bernard Cribbins at his best as the railway guy whose pride gets the better of him.
The DVD is fine but not great; there are no extras at all and the picture is a bit smudgy in the night-time scenes. It is however quite clear in the bright daytime scenes with no noticable grain.
The film is presented in 1.66:1 format (15:9) which is not wide enough for a 16:9 screen and leaves dark bands at the left and right. However, according to the Internet Movie Database this is exactly the format the film was made in so this is more a note than a complaint.
Notwithstanding the lack of extras on the DVD, the film is so good that I'd still advise you to buy it. If I had a time machine, I'd forget the future and I'd go back there, to a time when children waved at trains and got excited by a paper-chase.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic evocation of childhood, with Jenny Agutter as 14-year-old Bobbie; directed by Lionel Jeffries, 29 Oct 2007
The Railway Children, at least this 1970 movie version written and directed by that long-time British character actor, Lionel Jeffries, is an unmitigated...classic. It tells a childhood story with great simplicity and charm; the sentimentality is muted; the evocation of childhood adventures is involving; and Jeffries brings cleverness and style to his production.
The Waterbury family is leading an idyllic life in Edwardian London. The father is prosperous, the mother is beautiful and loving, the children are well-mannered and affectionate, their home is warm and cozy. Then one night during the Christmas holidays two men appear at the doorstep, talk quietly to the father, and then take him away. In a moment the lives of Mrs Waterbury (Dinah Sheridan) and Bobbie, 14 (Jenny Agutter), Phyllis, 12 (Sally Thomsett) and young Peter (Gary Warren), have been changed. Only their fortitude and good spirits are going to see them through. Now teetering into poverty, Mrs. Waterbury takes her children to live in a musty old brick house in the countryside near a rail-line, not too far from a small village with a train station. The children discover the rail and regularly sit on a small hill to wave at the passengers as the train chugs by. One day an old gentleman, going to his business in the city, looks up from his newspaper and finds himself waving back. It's not long before he will play an important part in the story.
As time passes, Mrs. Waterbury brings all her love and intelligence to bear on her children. She begins to write stories to earn money. She teaches them their lessons and provides a home of warmth and security for them. The story, however, is about these three children, especially Bobbie. At 14, she is old enough to want to share her mother's worries, yet young enough to enjoy the adventures she has with her sister and brother. They find a poor man at the station who cannot speak English. They discover he is a Russian refugee who no longer knows where his wife and child are. They insist he must come home with them, and their mother takes him in. Before long the children have written a large sign to the old gentlemen on the train asking for his help. They help a young man taking part in a steeplechase who breaks his leg in a train tunnel. Soon, he is at their home recuperating. They decide to have a birthday party for the station master, a man with few friends and several children who is a stickler for his dignity. It's not long before the children help him realize the difference between friendship and charity. In other words, the three children encounter all sorts of problems in their childhood adventures, and manage to be instrumental in seeing that all the problems have happy endings.
But what of their own problems? Bobbie finally learns from her mother that her father was taken away because he had been accused of treason, of giving state secrets to the Russians. Will Bobbie be able to find a way to help? Will the old gentleman be something more than simply an old gentleman on a passing train? Will their father's case be reopened? Will there be a happy ending?
Jenny Agutter was almost 18 when she filmed her part; she plays the 14-year-old Bobbie with great naturalness and charm. As important as the other players are, especially Dinah Sheridan as the mother, Agutter is the heart of the story. For me, it is Jenny Agutter's talent and Lionel Jeffries' style and restraint that make this movie so memorable. The story's problems come with no serious doubt but that they will be solved. And Jeffries does not just give us an expertly adapted and directed movie, he adds touches that are barely noticed but which charm us. This might include just a split second of a freeze frame as two people talk; or a slow close-up of a small, yellow wildflower in the grass outside Bobbie's home, then a slow pull-back from a yellow oil lamp being turned up inside; or the realization that a delightful interior shot or a view of the green countryside or a look at the train station from a hill...all suddenly recall those charming Edwardian hand-tinted drawings of a perfect by-gone time.
Perhaps this gentle story can't compete for the time kids need nowadays to perfect their Nintendo monster-splatting skills. I'm almost positive it would never capture the attention of most of their parents, especially those weaned on Batman and Leone. Still, it's a perfectly put together movie and shouldn't be forgotten. As an aside, 19 years later the story was retold as a television program. This time, Jenny Agutter played the mother.
The DVD transfer looks very good. There are no extras.
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting DVD, 28 Sep 2007
Please note the version I am reviewing is the DVD with a
Release Date of 21 Aug 2006 and ASIN: B000HEVTAO.
I can confirm this is a ' Anamorphic Widescreen ' version I would have
preferred a aspect ratio of 2.35:1 but you cant have everything in this life.
I reckon I am one of the few people in Britain who has never seen this Film on TV but I always wanted to watch it.
I am sure most people will be aware of the story line - the point I wanted to make was the DVD is a ' Anamorphic Widescreen ' version .
It starred Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett, Dinah Sheridan. William Mervyn and Bernard Cribbins.
The BFI named it as 66th in its list of the Top 100 British films.
Even although I am in my middle Fifties I still enjoyed the DVD and I will
watch this again.
Its a age long before ' mobile phones ' and ' designer labels ' when life was taken at a slower pace.
Its a very gentle film and its well worth buying the DVD if only just to see Jenny Agutter in her first Film role but she did appear in the BBC dramatisation of The Railway Children playing the same part.
In fact its such a wonderfull storyline I have now bought the ' The Railway Children [2000] ' version where Jenny Agutter plays the Mother.
ps
By the way the Great Northern and Southern Railway was the name of the railway in this film. In real life the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and its station at Oakworth provided the backdrop for the film.
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