THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT: Blu-ray (Ealing Studios, 1953) Film Movement

English farce has a comedic styling all its own – prone, either to discrete understatement (ergo, finding the joy and laughter to be had from life’s organic gestation within a scene) or wild-exaggeration (broad-painted caricature, run haplessly amok). We get a little of each in Charles Crichton’s The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953); a bon vivant’s master class in how to keep all these variables of the classic screwball in play, yet with a uniquely ‘English’ tone that sets it apart from the American derivative. At the heart of The Titfield Thunderbolt is a tale of a small middle-class community pooling its resources to achieve an impossible dream – that of a stay against the march of time and forced obsolescence in the name of progress – not always as ‘progressive’ as it may at first appear.  Indeed, the picture was loosely inspired by L.T.C. Rolt’s Railway Adventure (published in 1952) – Rolt, the honorary manager of a group of volunteers who successfully ran their own indie railroad for two years. Ealing Studios, known then for its serious dramas, with an occasional George Formby comedy to emerge, would officially enter its golden age as the purveyors of English farce with The Titfield Thunderbolt – one of three handsomely crafted offerings made in the same year.

T.E.B. Clarke’s screenplay drew heavily on Rolt’s real-life restoration of the Talyllyn narrow-gauge railway in Wales.  Amalgamating the names of two actual villages – Limpsfield and Titsey, the latter very near Clarke’s homestead in Oxted, in addition to kick-starting Ealing’s gilded age of comedy, The Titfield Thunderbolt would also mark the studio’s first to be shot in 3-strip Technicolor.  The picture is immeasurably blessed by Ealing’s formidable roster of familiar faces; top-billed Stanley Holloway, as Walter Valentine, the boozy and vivacious man of means who views his investment in Titfield’s foundering rail system as a grand lark on which he may daily indulge his predilection for strong drink inside its club car; George Relph, absolutely charming as the nervous, and even more readily befuddled Vicar of Titfield, Sam Weech; Naughton Wayne, as George Blakeworth, the perennially stuffed shirt with his heart in the right place; John Gregson, level-headed, impassioned as Squire Gordon Chesterford,  and finally, Hugh Griffith, the perpetually inebriated conductor, Dan Taylor.

The Titfield Thunderbolt was shot – mostly - near Bath, Somerset, on the shuddered Camerton branch of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway, reopened for filming. Titfield’s railway station was actually located in Monkton Combe, while the village itself was nearer Freshford, with additional scenes lensed at the disused Dunkerton Colliery. Interestingly, the actual locomotive depicted in the movie was an amalgam of several different actual engines, props and models. For the scene where an intoxicated Walter and Dan steal a ‘replacement locomotive’ after Titfield’s engine is unceremoniously derailed by Alec Pearce’s (Ewan Roberts) competing bus-line interests, art director, C.P. Norman effectively created a parade-like float by mounted the hollow chassis of an actual locomotive to the undercarriage of a two-ton Bedford truck, driven with rubber padding strapped to its weighty iron wheels, to make it appear as though the engine was actually being driven through the streets of Woodstock, Oxfordshire on bare concrete. The sequence depicting the actual derailment of the first No. 1401, careening off the dismantled tracks into a steep valley, was achieved with skillful miniatures and a few full-scale inserts of various parts of the locomotive coming loose and veering off on their own. The Thunderbolt was an actual antique, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Lion, built in 1838 and thus, at the time of the making of this movie, 114-years-old. Repainted in gaudy red and green livery to show off Technicolor to its best advantage, the Lion sustained minor damage when it was gingerly rammed in the film by its loose-fitting club car. For the scene in which the citizens of Titfield convince the museum to lend them this famous relic, the long-since demolished Imperial Institute near Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London was employed with a studio-built model substituted for the real thing.

The Titfield Thunderbolt opens, appropriately enough, with a daily commute through the picturesque countryside connecting the village of Titfield to that comparatively big-city metropolis of Mallingford, under main titles joyously scored by George Auric. The joie de vivre in these opening scenes is short-lived as Titfield is informed their quaint branch is to be permanently shuddered. For the railway, the concern is purely monetary, and actually, much desired by bus operators, Alec Pearce and Vernon Crump (Jack McGowran) who are seeking their own transportation monopoly. Learning of the railway’s decision, Vicar Sam Weech, a slightly dotty railway enthusiast, and Gordon Chesterford, Titfield’s squire, elect to take over the line, setting up their own indie company through a Light Railway Order. Pitching their idea to the affluent Walter Valentine, Chesterford and Weech quickly acquire a valiant compatriot in their endeavor, provided Valentine can exploit the line to sell booze in the club car. Alas, these three aspiring impresarios are barely successful at convincing the Ministry of Transport to grant them the order. Instead, Ruddock (Michael Trubshawe), the Minister of Transport affords these fledgling entrepreneurs a month's trial, at the end, the line must pass final inspection to make the Order permanent. Buoyed in their optimism, the town rallies to preserve the line, its citizens pulling together in everything from the beautification of the station, to daily management of the line’s operations. Much to Pearce and Crump’s chagrin, clientele eager to ride the Titfield Thunderbolt steadily grows, generating outside interests in the town and the line; both, having caught the popular imagination in the press.

While the town revel in their good fortune, Pearce and Crump plot a sinister revenge, aided by steam roller operator, Harry Hawkins (Sidney James), who harbors an unhealthy hatred of the line, largely due to his gal/pal, Joan’s (Gabrielle Brune) chronic delay of their engagement as she becomes more and more enamored with aiding in the railway’s success. On one of its routine runs, Hawkins sabotages the line’s water tower. Quick thinking prevails, as Weech and the supportive passengers sprint across an open field to a nearby manor house, raided for all manner of buckets, bushels and baths to carry fresh water from a nearby stream, back and forth to fill the Thunderbolt’s steam tanks. Recognizing the line’s greatest virtue is its impregnable volunteers, Crump makes a pitch to Chesterford to become partners. Chesterford absolutely refuses to entertain such a merger, forcing Crump and Pearce to hire Hawkins to help them derail the locomotive the night before the line's inspection. Under the cover of night, this trio of sabotaging cohorts dismantle a portion of the track near a very steep valley. Meanwhile, the village’s solicitor, Blakeworth, deducing something sinister afoot, hurriedly dresses and proceeds to walk down to the shed where the Thunderbolt is housed.  Alas, Blakeworth is too late. Hawkins has already hooked up the Thunderbolt to his steam roller, towing it to the point of no return before letting it slide down the hill toward inevitable oblivion. Blakeworth, valiantly climbs aboard and tries to avert this disaster.

Tragically, the train derails. Blakeworth is thrown from the wreckage; spared his life, though not the indignation of being arrested by a constable as the suspected saboteur. Weech and Chesterford are disheartened until Weech spies an old etching of the original Thunderbolt, long-since housed as a museum artifact. While Valentine and Dan get quietly snookered, concocting an idiotic plan to steal a locomotive from Mallingford’s railway roundhouse, Weech springs Blakeworth from jail and implores him to convince the museum to loan them the original Thunderbolt. The town, again, rallies to the cause, stealing Dan’s portable home and mounting it to a chassis as a make-shift passenger car to be towed behind the engine. Alas, the couplings do not match, as the original Thunderbolt is from an earlier vintage.  So, the cars are rigged with mere rope to hold them together. Meanwhile, Valentine and Dan are momentarily successful at breaking into Mallingford’s rail yards and absconding with a locomotive they proceed to drive through the streets and into the forest, pursued by the local constabulary. Too intoxicated to see the forest for the trees – literally – Dan crashes against a large oak. He and Valentine are arrested and charged with a litany of infractions.

As the sun dawns on the day of inspection, Weech and Chesterford brace themselves for a bumpy ride.  Unsuspecting of the events already transpired, Pearce and Crump prepare to take on passengers, instead, amazed to see the vintage Thunderbolt already stoked and waiting at the station with a bustling platform of patrons eager to board. Distracted, Pearce crashes their bus into the police van transporting Valentine and Dan to jail. Assuming the police already know they are guilty of sabotage, Crump fumbles a confession and escape. He is apprehended, along with Pearce and promptly charged with the crime. Short of a conductor, Weech accepts aid from the Bishop of Wechester, Ollie Matthews (Godfrey Tearle), a fellow railway enthusiast. The train, slightly delayed, nevertheless departs with the stuffy inspector on board, along with the police escorting Crump, Pearce, Dan and Valentine to prison. On route, the Thunderbolt’s feeble coupling fails, leaving the passenger car behind. Distracting the inspector, Chesterford convinces Hawkins to loan them his steel tow chain as a temporary fix; Joan, agreeing to marry Hawkins immediately if he will comply. Despite these delays, the Thunderbolt pulls into Mallingford only nine minutes late. The basic requirements having been met; the inspector grants the village a permanent Order to operate. As everyone offer a celebratory cheer, Weech’s exhausted elation is priceless.

The Titfield Thunderbolt is a cordial – if occasionally, too-too quaint – charmer. It is virtual impossible not to become wholly invested in the picture’s sincerity and communal spirit. Virtually all of its appeal resides in the brilliant ensemble – each, a genuinely appealing character, straight out of ‘Character-ville’. It is the interaction between these unaffectedly gifted and droll thespians, most seasoned with the ripening of age to a finite precision in their craft, that remains priceless, even when T.E.B. Clarke’s screenplay deviates into mildly contrived scenarios that could never come off in real life. Observing these underdogs in their dogged pursuit to succeed is as rewarding. Tragically, Godfrey Tearle, who played the spirited Matthews, would die of a heart attack in 1953. Sixty-eight at the time of filming, he was required to perform heavy labor, shoveling coal aboard the Thunderbolt in the final scenes; some, suggesting the intensity he displayed, hastened his ultimate demise. The greater irony, of course, is that the events, as depicted in The Titfield Thunderbolt would eventually befall many small branch rail lines in England.  Clarke, a neighbor of Richard Beeching, then Director of ICI, would bear witness to Beeching’s 1963 report ‘The Re-shaping of British Railways’ – effectively to restructure the nationalized railroad, resulting in the wholesale closure of many branches without warning.

The Titfield Thunderbolt arrives on Blu-ray via Film Movement’s alliance with StudioCanal to distribute their restorations state’s side. The restoration efforts here, conducted at Pinewood Studios, while yielding an image quality that is light years ahead of anything this movie has looked like since its theatrical premiere, is still somewhat wanting. There are only a handful of examples of mis-registration of the 3-strip dupe negatives. But color balancing has not been sufficiently addressed. For one, flesh tones can appear quite anemic – and pink – in spots and downright jaundice-yellow in others. For another, the lushness of the color on the whole just seems a tad off. Green fields are glowing emerald, as example. The 2K scan with grading by Vincent Narduzo (who also remastered Black Narcissus, arguably, with infinitely better results), crisps up, with a few minor scenes still looking soft and/or blurry.  Scenes shot in broad daylight glow with the brilliance of vintage Technicolor and close-ups are impressively detailed. But there is some serious, if intermittent, fluctuations in color. Scenes shot day-for-night, are appropriately bathed in rich blues, blacks and grays. The image does tend to slightly lean toward a yellow-ish tint. We get a 2.0 DTS mono audio track, adequately preserved with minimal distortion. Extras are a truncated hot mess of oddities, beginning with a brief ‘making of’ that is two-thirds choice reflection, loosely strung together, but ending abruptly in mid-thought. There are also featurettes showing Douglas Slocombe’s behind-the-scenes 16mm color footage while working on the movie. These suffer from interminable interlacing and digital combing, making the footage virtually unwatchable. There is also a featurette on the actual Lion locomotive – again, too brief, riddled in interlaced video, and, handled with a matter-of-fact ennui. We also get an audio only excerpt of an interview with Slocombe and Crichton, and finally, trailers. Bottom line: The Titfield Thunderbolt is a joyful little programmer worthy of your time. The Blu-ray, while a vast improvement, is not perfect. The extras are forgettable at best. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

2.5