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Trains in old movies but not necessarily train movies

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Posted by Leo_Ames on Thursday, April 23, 2020 1:19 AM

My cable box essentially never leaves Turner Classic Movies. 

I would watch MeTV if I didn't already own everything of interest that they air on DVD or Blu-Ray. I'd much rather just put in a disc for something like Green Acres and watch it uncut and commercial free. 

The goodbye scene in Since You Went Away is a classic. And while I can't remember any specific examples off the top of my head, it's been often imitated. One of my favorite movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLV_WK_z1t0

The train scene at the end of The Trouble With Angels is another good one. Was so pleased when Sony finally brought this Columbia classic out on Blu-Ray a year ago. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM7-J7XH6tc

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 9:39 PM

I haven't seen the film but there's a better than good possibility the car interiors are part of a set and not a real railcar, so trying to get what kind of car it is might do you no good.

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Posted by 54light15 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 6:02 PM

There's not a lot of external views but what I could see, they were heavyweights. The seats came out from the wall, benches like in a school bus. Flipover seats? But you really could not get a clear view due to all the people in the scene. 

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Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 4:38 PM

54light15

A friend lent me a Thin Man movie collection. The one I watched last night, "The Thin Man Goes Home" from 1944 shows Nick and Nora travelling by train. The train was packed to the rafters with people. 3 people in seats made for two, the aisle of a a sleeping car jammed with people standing. Is that what wartime train travel was like? 

 

From what one man told me about getting off an ACL train at Jesup, Georgia, such was not uncommon--he had to struggle to get to a vestibule so he could get off.

How old was the coach Nick and Nora were on? Did it have reclining seats, or did the seat backs extend from the outside wall to the aisle?

Johnny

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Posted by York1 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 4:22 PM

54light15
The one I watched last night, "The Thin Man Goes Home" from 1944 shows Nick and Nora travelling by train.

That's a good one, with Nora trying to smuggle Asta in the coach car.

I don't know how accurate that was.  I've got to believe that while trains were crowded, the movie exagerated it a little.  I could be wrong.

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Posted by 54light15 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 4:17 PM

A friend lent me a Thin Man movie collection. The one I watched last night, "The Thin Man Goes Home" from 1944 shows Nick and Nora travelling by train. The train was packed to the rafters with people. 3 people in seats made for two, the aisle of a a sleeping car jammed with people standing. Is that what wartime train travel was like? 

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Posted by 54light15 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 1:59 PM

When I was in Germany on vacation on a heritage rail tour, we passed by what looked like Fort Courage from "F Troop." People pointed it out to me, being the only North American on the tour. Most of us grew up reading the Hardy Boys and Mark Twain; Germans all seem to have grown up on tales of the old West written by Karl May who never left Germany. Those rootin' tootin' teutons! 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 1:48 PM

Just an add-on to the "Kelly's Heroes" post.

If you've seen "Saving Private Ryan" you've seen those "Kelly's Heroes" Tigers making another screen appearance.  I believe the three of them are in Britain now.

The Tiger in "Fury" on the other hand was the real thing!  Loaned to the film-makers from the tank museum in Bovington, UK.

What amazes me about the "Spagetti Westerns" is that there's enough interest in Europe about the American West that they'd make such films to begin with.  

Hey, they re-enact the American Civil War in Germany!  Talk about amazing!   If you know your Civil War history it shouldn't surprise you to find Union Army outfits where German is spoken, but it's a mind-blower to find Confederate outfits doing the same!

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Posted by York1 on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 10:45 AM

How about, "It Happened to Jane", starring Doris Day, Jack Lemmon, and Ernie Kovacs?  Not necessarily a great movie, but had interesting train scenes.

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Posted by nhrand on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 10:33 AM

"Living It Up" starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis is a 1954 film which begins with Lewis playing Homer Flagg, a station agent in the small town of Dessert Hole, New Mexico who has always wanted to visit New York.  The opening scenes introducing Lewis as a railroad man were filmed at Summit depot at Cajon Pass and there are some shots of Santa Fe steam helpers turning on the wye which fascinated me since I was fifteen and living along the dieselized New Haven.

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 10:28 PM

Thanks for that info, Flintlock- good stuff! I always thought that in the GB & U, that the "Ugly" referred to Eli Wallach and not Lee Van Cleef. In any event, there is a scene in the "Naked City" television show where Eli shoots an unbilled Peter Falk. Naked City was awesome! 

I like how movies such as Leone made use obvously European railroad equipment yet still expect us to believe it's in the American West. Wasn't it made by an Italian production company some years earlier? Clint was in that one I recall. Spaghetti Westerns- gotta love 'em! Hell, I love all Westerns. Especially those done by Sean Aloysius O'Feeney. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 9:31 PM

Well I saw it just fine!

That trailer's a little different from the one I remember.  Pretty close, but I remember a line that went:

"The 'Good' kill because they have  to.  The 'Bad' kill, because they want  to.  The 'Ugly' kill, because THEY LIKE TO!"   Maybe it was from a radio commercial, it has been a while.  Great Western, that's for sure!

'54, "Kelly's Heroes" was filmed in the former Yugoslavia, that particular area's Croatia now. At the time the Yugoslav army was still using a lot of WW2 vintage equipment, Sherman tanks and assorted American and left behind German motor vehicles.  They also had T-34 Russian made tanks that had been modified to look like Tigers for a Yugoslav movie produced several years earlier, so the "Kelly's Heroes" production team found everything they needed there.

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Posted by Penny Trains on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 8:57 PM

54light15
Dammit- I can't see whatever was posted above.

Let's try this instead:

It's pretty high on my list of best films ever made.

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 8:53 PM

York1
Not sure if this is it, but it is listed as a filming scene for the movie

BowBowBow That's gotta be it!!  Finding that has been a thorn in my side since first seeing that movie. You have unburdened me, thank you!!

 

Oddly enough, I have driven right through there a good half dozen times, but all before I ever saw the movie, so it never registered with me back in the day. But I'm sure you've nailed it, the view up the incline reminds me of the movie in a big way.

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Posted by York1 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 7:32 PM

Convicted One
Speaking of that movie....there was a chase scene where they are  racing down a road that follows the coast. To the side of the road opposite the ocean is a cliff, maybe 20-30 feet high. they pass under a pedestrian bridge that spans from the top of the cliff to a stairway on the ocean side of the road. Basically "beach access" is what comes to mind when looking at it.

 

Not sure if this is it, but it is listed as a filming scene for the movie:

 

 

 

This is the new bridge:

 

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Posted by York1 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 7:23 PM

54light15
I just watched "Out of the Past" with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. That is as classic a film noir as was ever made. Mitchum made it look easy. 

 

Great movie!  I loved the place that Kirk Douglas had at Lake Tahoe.

Jane Greer played one of the most diabolical women in that movie.

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 6:48 PM

Flintlock- I sure do remember those Sunday channel 5 movies and the daily 4:30 movie on what, channel 9? I must have seen "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" about a dozen times after I got home from school. 

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle" I think has Mitchum's best performance, not that he ever gave a bad one. The book is excellent too as are the other books by the author, George V. Higgins. 

In your movie, Flintlock where the tanks come straight out of the tunnel the tracks look to be broad-gauge and off to the right where the electrics are, it looks like narrow gauge. I wonder where it was filmed- I assume Spain. 

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Posted by Crescentlover on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 5:32 PM

"The friends of Eddie Coyle" has a few neat scenes at a MA commuter station. A PC Turbo Train screams by, and the bad guy smashes into things in a 71 Roadrunner. Since I love both muscle cars and trains, this is a great scene, and not a bad gangster movie!

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 5:23 PM

Convicted One- I watched the movie a few years ago with a guy who knew the area well. He said it was south of L.A. but now I don't recall just where. Flintlock - I forgot just how good that movie is. I wonder if that's a narrow-gauge railway- note the small electric locomotives. And Donald Sutherland is still around, unlike the people you mention on TMC. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 4:57 PM

"Trains in old movies that aren't necessarily train movies..."

Oh man, HOW could I forget THIS classic?

Mind you, I have a hard time thinking of this as an old movie, but jeez, I saw it when it came out in 1970!  That's 50 years ago!  Where'd the time go?

Not gonna tell you what it is, it's going to be a surprise.   Wink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC4lVoCFZvk  

'54, remember all those old classics Channel 5 (WNEW) used to show Sunday afternoons back in the 60's?  

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 4:57 PM

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 4:53 PM

54light15
His last film was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Speaking of that movie....there was a chase scene where they are  racing down a road that follows the coast. To the side of the road opposite the ocean is a cliff, maybe 20-30 feet high.

they pass under a pedestrian bridge that spans from the top of the cliff to a stairway on the ocean side of the road. Basically "beach access" is what comes to mind when looking at it.

I've racked my brain and beaten up google satellite pretty bad trying to find that location, to no avail.

Have you any idea where that location is? I suspect it was not shot anywhere near the location of the town where they end up at the conclusion of the chase. I think it was shot north of Los Angeles somewhere, and then spliced into the move timeline via editorial creativity.

To make matters  worse, immediately after they pass under the bridge (heading north, ostensibly) there is a break in the cliff with an intersecting road that they turn on and double back headed southeasterly, in sort of a slow climb of the cliff. 

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 4:36 PM

"Pickup on South Street" is an excellent film; there's a scene on a subway car where a soldier has a number one on his shoulder patch from the First Infantry Division, the director Sam Fuller's old outfit. One of his last films was "The Big Red One." Watch "The Steel Helmet" about the Korean war with Gene Evans. If that's not the precursor to "Night of the Living Dead," I don't know what is. George Romero lived in Toronto the last few years before he died and there are or were comic-cons at the convention centre. He made several appearances there and I always wished I had gone so I could ask him about that. 

I just watched "Out of the Past" with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. That is as classic a film noir as was ever made. Mitchum made it look easy. 

I've loved old movies ever since my mother dragged us to see Keaton's "The General" when I was about 10 years old. A silent movie? What a crazy idea! Mom grew up in a movie theatre. Every Saturday every kid in Bensonhurst was in the movies with cartoons, shorts, newsreels, B feature, A feature and then they could watch it all over again until the parents dragged them home to have dinner. Cheap daycare, even in the 1930s. 

"Grapes of Wrath" to me is the last western. Grandma and Grandpa came west in a covered wagon, now they have to leave in an automobile. Everyone had to leave- it was ethnic cleansing, similar to the pogroms in eastern Europe, the clearances in Scotland, the famine in Ireland. In each and every case, the people being moved out ended up much better off then they were had they stayed put. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 3:29 PM

Better writing in old movies?  You're not kidding!

There haven't been too many releases in the past ten years that I've even thought about seeing.  The last movie I went to was "1917," which actually was excellent.

(As a WW1 buff there's some things I could pick at, but no matter.)

Before that it was the documentary "They Shall Not Grow Old," which was outstanding!

But all in all, I'd rather watch the classics.

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Posted by York1 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 1:53 PM

Convicted One
There are a number of old classics that I likely never would have seen, if not for TCM.

You and me, both!

I was never interested in old movies until I met my wife.  She dragged me to a New Orleans movie theater that, once a week, showed  a double feature of old classic movies.

The first night, we saw Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and "Notorious".

I was hooked.

Years later, when we finally got cable, there was AMC, which at that time showed old movies.  Then TCM came along.

What amazes me is the excellent writing in some of those old movies.  In many cases, it was better writing than you find in most modern movies.

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 1:45 PM

There are a number of old classics that I likely never would have seen, if not for TCM.

Born Yesterday, The Killing,  Nightmare Alley,  Thieves Highway, Pickup on South Street.....all of those movies I considered well above average, and was in disbelief that I had never heard of them before.

And despite hearing about them all my life I never saw the Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men before TCM made it easy. I think "I am a Fugitive from a Chaingang" falls into that category as well. 

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 1:38 PM

Convicted One- Remember in Some Like it Hot, the bell boy called him satchelmouth? I have seen a western with him in it and as I recall someone said, "I'm gonna cut his throat!"  the other guy said, "somebody beat ya to it."  His last film was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 1:05 PM

You know what we call Turner Classic Movies here at the "Fortress Flintlock?"

"Uncle Ted's Movie Morgue."

Think about it.  There's almost no-one left alive from any of those classic movies! 

Hey, how about "Danger Lights?"  The actors are all dead, the steam engines are all dead, the Milwaukee Road's dead, even a lot of the locations are dead and gone!  It's a "Cinematic Mausoleum!"  

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Posted by 54light15 on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 12:35 PM

Yeah, another reason to cut the cable. Turner Classics is great but I'd just as soon be in control of what I'm watching so I can get up and get a beer or go to the can without missing anything. There is a channel here, Telelatino that does show old movies but with a break every half hour which is sure better than AMC with commercials every ten minutes. 

There is a bar up the street that shows Turner classics on a TV above the bar with subtitiles which I find a pretty good thing. I hope they survive, they make excellent BLTs. 

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 10:21 AM

I go into "cable protest" mode periodically, I cut the cord from 1993 to 2002, felt great about it, but bought a HDTV in 2002 so I got cable to support the set's capability. And then cut the cord again in 2007 until 2017.

Now mostly I use Comcast for the internet access, and bundling their cable base package to that seems to be cheaper than adding anyone elses base package.

At the very core, it's absurd to have to pay anything, considering the commercial load we are force fed. 7-10 minutes out of every half hour for commercials?

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