Train of Events (1949)

Directors:

Sidney Cole
Charles Crichton

Writers:

T.E.B. Clarke (writer)
Basil Dearden (writer)

Release Date:

29 January 1951 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Laughter, Love, Suspense and Thrills in a Film of a Fateful Journey

Plot:

A train disaster is told as four short stories to give character studies of the people involved, how it will affect them and how they deal with it. |

Plot Keywords:

Disaster | Train | Ealing | Episodic | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Jack Warner	...	Jim Hardcastle (segment "The Engine Driver")
Gladys Henson	...	Mrs Hardcastle (segment "The Engine Driver")
Susan Shaw	...	Doris Hardcastle (segment "The Engine Driver")
Patric Doonan	...	Ron Stacey (segment "The Engine Driver")
Miles Malleson	...	Timekeeper (segment "The Engine Driver")
Philip Dale	...	Hardcastle's fireman (segment "The Engine Driver")
Leslie Phillips	...	Stacey's Fireman (segment "The Engine Driver")
Joan Dowling	...	Ella (segment "The Prisoner-of-War")
Laurence Payne	...	Richard (segment "The Prisoner-of-War")
Olga Lindo	...	Mrs. Bailey (segment "The Prisoner-of-War")
Valerie Hobson	...	Stella (segment "The Composer")
John Clements	...	Raymond Hillary (segment "The Composer")
Irina Baronova	...	Irina (segment "The Composer")
John Gregson	...	Malcolm (segment "The Composer")
Gwen Cherrell	...	Chairman (segment "The Composer")

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Ealing Studios, Ealing, London, England, UK

Company:

Ealing Studios

Trivia:

First film of Laurence Payne.

Goofs:

Continuity: As the train approaches the level crossing where the crash takes place it is traveling through open countryside. Yet during the rescue operation after the crash a bridge is clearly visible at a point 30 to 40 meters behind the train.

Catch this train

`Train of Events' was a critical and commercial failure in its time but if you like these British films as much as I do I think you'll find plenty to enjoy here.

'Compendium' films were popular in the late Forties, several were made from the short stories of Somerset Maugham and then there was the greatest of them all `Dead of Night'. `Train of Events ', hardly in that class, contains four stories which all culminate on a train which we saw crashing in the opening scenes. So, like `Friday the Thirteenth' ( a great portmanteau movie made in 1933)the climax is a matter of virtue rewarded and villainy punished as not everyone survives.

Interestingly television is quite strongly featured for the time (1949), a wind-up gramophone looks much more appropriate!

Valerie Hobson is first actor credited though her role is no larger than several others, she plays the forgiving wife of a philandering husband. In real life Hobson was married to British cabinet minister John Profumo whose relationship with Christine Keeler brought down a government in the sixties. Once again Life Imitates Art. In another story Peter Finch murders his faithless wife. He spouts chunks of Shakespeare, looked gaunt and middle-aged to me.

The model-work at the climax is satisfyingly convincing, I recommend `Train of Events'