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Trains in old movies but not necessarily train movies

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Posted by saguaro on Wednesday, April 15, 2020 8:21 PM

One of my favorite old movies with a train is Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." There are great scenes inside Grand Central Station, boarding the 20th Century Limited (with the red carpet rolled out), and then aboard the 20th Century Limited. Cary Grant and Eva St. Marie -- one of the best movies ever.

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, April 16, 2020 8:20 AM

saguaro

One of my favorite old movies with a train is Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." There are great scenes inside Grand Central Station, boarding the 20th Century Limited (with the red carpet rolled out), and then aboard the 20th Century Limited. Cary Grant and Eva St. Marie -- one of the best movies ever.

 

I have always wondered how Eva Marie Saint managed to get the porter's tool needed to open and close the upper berth. Aside from that, I thought the railroad part was well done.

Johnny

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, April 16, 2020 8:38 AM

Deggesty

 

 
saguaro

One of my favorite old movies with a train is Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." There are great scenes inside Grand Central Station, boarding the 20th Century Limited (with the red carpet rolled out), and then aboard the 20th Century Limited. Cary Grant and Eva St. Marie -- one of the best movies ever.

 

 

 

I have always wondered how Eva Marie Saint managed to get the porter's tool needed to open and close the upper berth. Aside from that, I thought the railroad part was well done.

 

 

Eva Marie Saint was such a hottie I don't think anyone could have refused her anything, up to and including porter's tools.

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, April 16, 2020 10:51 AM

Wayne, you may have something there.

Many years ago, Greyhound buses had a crank (carried inside, by the door,) for opening the baggage bins. Once, when I rode from home with a driver who knew me, I reached in, took the crank, stowed my suitcase,, and put the crank back. When we came to the Charlotte station, I took my suitcase out before the station porter arrived.

Johnny

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Posted by Convicted One on Thursday, April 16, 2020 12:57 PM

Would the fight scenes between Robert Shaw and Sean Connery in Ian Flemming's "From Russia with Love" qualify here?

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Posted by York1 on Thursday, April 16, 2020 1:15 PM

Deggesty
I have always wondered how Eva Marie Saint managed to get the porter's tool needed to open and close the upper berth. Aside from that, I thought the railroad part was well done.

 

One of my favorite movies.

Of course, you can't pay much attention to details like the porter's tool, or that movie would drive you crazy.

How did Vandamm ever build a house on top of Mt. Rushmore?  

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Posted by Miningman on Thursday, April 16, 2020 1:50 PM

The Mastermind bad guys always have really cool places to live and apparently limitless money. So why not just enjoy it all and cease being a bad guy? 

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Posted by Convicted One on Thursday, April 16, 2020 2:32 PM

Miningman
So why not just enjoy it all and cease being a bad guy? 

Mostly, I don't think they see themselves as a "bad guy".  They just have selfish priorities and an agenda for personal gain that places them (to their own view) above the rules that apply to the unwashed masses.

They likely see jail as a place where only stupid people go.

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Posted by 54light15 on Thursday, April 16, 2020 2:47 PM

Convicted One- yes, From Russia With Love well qualifies. All of the exterior train shots were done in England. Note in one scene how the train carriages all have doors down the side? That's Southern Railway equipment and not exactly the Orient Express. I've ridden on them once or twice but they have all been retired. I think the whole point of that movie is the fight on the train just like the whole point of Dr. No was Ursula Andress coming out of the water in that tan bikini. Yow! 

And what's the point of being a bad guy if you can't have a cool hideout? An underground lair? Or a model of Fort Knox? Funny how he had that model made, then killed all the guys he showed it to. Well, he went to great expense and had to show it to somebody, right?

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Posted by Convicted One on Thursday, April 16, 2020 3:05 PM

54light15
An underground lair? Or a model of Fort Knox? Funny how he had that model made, then killed all the guys he showed it to. Well, he went to great expense and had to show it to somebody, right?

That's kinda my point I was getting at earlier. Hollywood tends to cook a certain recipe when presenting their perpetrators to us, depicting them as some malevolent being who gets up out of bed in the morning with their first thought being "Okay I'm the bad guy, so what rotten thing can I do today?"

I suspect that it has to do with the need to portray their demise as having a redeeming social value.

I think there was a line in the movie "True Lies" that explains rather nicely that there are no "good guys" or "bad guys"...... just differences in perspective.

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Posted by Convicted One on Thursday, April 16, 2020 8:09 PM

"Hour of the Gun" with James Garner (1967) is  fairly train intensive, also

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, April 16, 2020 8:43 PM

Convicted One

"Hour of the Gun" with James Garner (1967) is  fairly train intensive, also

 

A very good, very grim, and under-rated Western.  

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Posted by Penny Trains on Thursday, April 16, 2020 8:50 PM

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

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Posted by York1 on Thursday, April 16, 2020 9:21 PM

Earlier we talked about North by Northwest.

Turner Classic Movies is showing it on Friday afternoon.  If you've never seen it, or like me, want to see it again, it's worth the time.  A lot of classic movie scenes.

York1 John       

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Posted by 54light15 on Thursday, April 16, 2020 10:38 PM

Octopussy was filmed on the Nene Valley Railway in England. I've been there, it's about 9 miles long and there is a lot to see. But still, I'm not that crazy about the Bond films with Roger Moore. There is only one Bond and we all know who that is. 

https://www.nvr.org.uk/ 

Another one is "Strangers On A Train" that is not really a train movie, but a train is the motivator of the plot. Some scenes were filmed at Danbury, Connecticut. The creepiest was the tennis game, with Robert Walker looking straight at Farley Granger while everyone else's heads were swinging back and forth. Eesh! 

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Posted by M636C on Friday, April 17, 2020 6:47 AM

This afternoon I saw a movie "Train of Events", which appears to have been filmed in 1948 or so. It is based on an accident occurring to a train, the 15:45 Euston to Liverpool, hauled by rebuilt Royal Scot 46126, painted in the initial black lined red and cream, later adopted for mixed traffic classes. The tender was  lettered "British Railways". The passenger cars were all still lettered for LMS.

The film outlines the activities of various passengers and the driver (jack Warner) in the days leading up to the accident. It concludes with the driver, who survives, being promoted to a desk job.

A lot of excellent period scenes, with all the featured locomotives in BR paint, but others in various stages of transition to Nationalisation.

Peter

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Posted by York1 on Friday, April 17, 2020 2:58 PM

Deggesty
I have always wondered how Eva Marie Saint managed to get the porter's tool needed to open and close the upper berth. Aside from that, I thought the railroad part was well done.

 

I'm just watching North by Northwest right now.  Eva Marie Saint just told Cary Grant that she stole the tool from the porter.

York1 John       

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Posted by Leo_Ames on Saturday, April 18, 2020 3:38 AM

She even gives it back the next morning as I recall, telling the porter she found it.

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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, April 18, 2020 8:06 AM

I hope the porter had all the necessary berths made down before she stole it--or he was able to borrow another porter's tool.

Johnny

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Saturday, April 18, 2020 10:05 AM

54light15

There is only one Bond and we all know who that is. 

While I won't argue with your choice, I've observed that Daniel Craig plays James Bond pretty close to the way that Ian Fleming wrote him: cold and cynical.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Saturday, April 18, 2020 10:35 AM

Daniel Craig is a cold and cynical Bond all right, but he also looks like he was weaned on a pickle!

Some interesting James Bond trivia.  Ian Fleming wasn't happy with the casting of Sean Connery as Bond, Fleming thought Connery was too "Scottish blue-collar" looking while Fleming's Bond was supposed to be a proper British gentleman.

Until Fleming saw the first rushes.  Then he agreed with Connery's casting wholeheartedly.  

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Posted by 54light15 on Saturday, April 18, 2020 10:41 AM

Ian Fleming was seconded to Camp X in Bowmanville, Ontario during the war. He also worked at the old army staff college on Avenue Road in Toronto just North of Eglnton Avenue. He had said that he named Bond after a friend of his who was an avid birdwatcher as I recall. But, just across Avenue Road was a church. The church (now a condo) was St. James-Bond United Church. It was a church until about 20 years ago and I sure recall the sign out in front. 

Daniel Craig seemed like a total thug, but then I got that impression about Sean in Dr. No. 

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Posted by York1 on Saturday, April 18, 2020 11:45 AM

The favorite Bond is personal preference.  My wife liked Connery, I liked Moore.

While Craig may be what Fleming had in mind, I really don't care for the last several Bond movies.

Bond movies used to be adventurous fun.  However, the Craig and some of the Brosnan films are much more serious and dark.  For me, they're not fun to watch anymore.

Personal preference.

York1 John       

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Posted by 54light15 on Saturday, April 18, 2020 1:49 PM

One thing about Skyfall, it had an Aston Martin DB5 and a long train ride in the Balkans and the thing that was cool was that the iconic theme music that we all know from the beginning of every other film didn't happen until about 20 minutes in and I felt like the entire theatre thought, "Yeah, now it's a real James Bond film!" 

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Posted by M636C on Saturday, April 18, 2020 7:41 PM

Another of the classic British comedies, "The Ladykillers" was run yesterday here. It is in colour, a change from most of these early post WWII movies.

A group of thieves rob an armoured car and end up with the money in a house beside the railway tracks. They kill eachother off as individuals try to escape from the group with the money.

One by one the bodies are dropped into empty coal wagons from a tunnel mouth. The sound effects include a realistic thump as the bodies (concealed by locomotive steam) fall into the open steel wagons.

The little old lady who was conned into helping the gang is unable to convince the police she has the money, so she keeps it...

But there are a number of scenes with the trains in the background as well as the disposal of bodies shots.

Peter

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Posted by 54light15 on Saturday, April 18, 2020 11:43 PM

The Ladykillers- excellent choice. A lot of people didn't like the Coen Brothers version but I thought it was pretty decent. The original is set in the part of London just North of King's Cross station in a part of town called Copenhagen Fields. They're not really tunnels but are bridge underpasses. I was in London and tried to find the exact location of Mrs. Wilberforce's house but those were done in a studio. I've been to Lavender Hill too, another favourite of mine. 

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Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:18 AM

I have only one thing to say about that video.

 

Loading gauge.

If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:26 AM

Paul Milenkovic
I have only one thing to say about that video.

Loading gauge.

What, no comment about the outside Stephenson gear?

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, April 19, 2020 2:06 PM

Train scene in Leave Her to Heaven 

So which Railroad looks like the Northern Pacific but is in New Mexico? 

https://youtu.be/-r3ZotQacms

 

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Posted by York1 on Sunday, April 19, 2020 3:36 PM

Miningman
Train scene in Leave Her to Heaven 

 

Leave Her to Heaven!  What a movie.  What a woman.

I love the houses, from New Mexico to Back of the Moon to the Atlantic Coast in Maine.  

"There's nothing wrong with Ellen.  It's just that she loves too much."

York1 John       

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