This month we watched The Railway Children.
Genre: Family Drama
Plot: After the enforced absence of their father, three children move with their mother to Yorkshire, where their adventures revolve around the Railway.
Key Characters: Mrs. Waterbury (Dinah Sheridan), Charles Waterbury (Iain Cuthbertson), Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Waterbury (Jenny Agutter), Phyllis Waterbury (Sally Thomsett), Peter Waterbury (Gary Warren), Albert Perks (Bernard Cribbins), Old Gentleman (William Mervyn).
Review: we rated as 3.5 out of 5.
Everyone enjoyed this movie. One described it as a sweet movie, others as engaging. The performances by the key players were good, with some overacting that was found to be charming rather than distracting. Lighting and colour was used to god effect. For example, when the family first arrives in Yorkshire, the house is dark and uninviting, but as they settled into their new life the house became lighter and friendlier. The colours of the grass and flowers also reflected the mood of the children as their life became lighter and happier, although still poor and missing their father. In many ways it was episodic. Each adventure experienced by the children was complete in itself. There was a TV series made in 1968, two years before the movie. Whether the adventures were what lent it to be made into the series, or whether the episodes in the TV series led to the episodic approach to the movie could be open to debate. It might be interesting to read the book on which it was based as part of investigating this question.
Coming Up: Our April movie will be Please Murder Me, starring Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury. We aim to start watching the movie promptly at 1:00pm so that we have time to discuss the movie. Here's an excerpt...
Genre: Family Drama
Plot: After the enforced absence of their father, three children move with their mother to Yorkshire, where their adventures revolve around the Railway.
Key Characters: Mrs. Waterbury (Dinah Sheridan), Charles Waterbury (Iain Cuthbertson), Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Waterbury (Jenny Agutter), Phyllis Waterbury (Sally Thomsett), Peter Waterbury (Gary Warren), Albert Perks (Bernard Cribbins), Old Gentleman (William Mervyn).
Review: we rated as 3.5 out of 5.
Everyone enjoyed this movie. One described it as a sweet movie, others as engaging. The performances by the key players were good, with some overacting that was found to be charming rather than distracting. Lighting and colour was used to god effect. For example, when the family first arrives in Yorkshire, the house is dark and uninviting, but as they settled into their new life the house became lighter and friendlier. The colours of the grass and flowers also reflected the mood of the children as their life became lighter and happier, although still poor and missing their father. In many ways it was episodic. Each adventure experienced by the children was complete in itself. There was a TV series made in 1968, two years before the movie. Whether the adventures were what lent it to be made into the series, or whether the episodes in the TV series led to the episodic approach to the movie could be open to debate. It might be interesting to read the book on which it was based as part of investigating this question.
Coming Up: Our April movie will be Please Murder Me, starring Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury. We aim to start watching the movie promptly at 1:00pm so that we have time to discuss the movie. Here's an excerpt...
With all the movies we watch, we look at them as literature – literature in a different medium, the medium of film. This helps to focus the discussion, covering ideas around genre, characters, plot, but also adding the aspects that relate to film, such as cinemascope, music and atmosphere.
Joy Shirley
With all the movies we watch, we look at them as literature – literature in a different medium, the medium of film. This helps to focus the discussion, covering ideas around genre, characters, plot, but also adding the aspects that relate to film, such as cinemascope, music and atmosphere.
Joy Shirley
