Riding the Rails
by Michael Uys, Lexy Lovell
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Arvel 'Sunshine' Pearson, James San Jule, Peggy De Hart, Rene Champion, Richard ThomasDirector: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Brand: Wgbh Wholesale
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 72 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-02-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: PBS
Movie Reviews of Riding the Rails
Movie Review: a heartbreaking tale focusing on shattered youth
Summary: 5 Stars
This documentary tells the heartrending story of how young men and even some young women began hopping freight trains to find work, excitement, adventure and a better life in general during the Great Depression. We get outstanding archival footage as well as quite a bit of recent interview footage with the now elderly people who rode the freight trains back then; and this film taught me quite a lot about their lives at this point in history.
The financial depression that ensued after the stock market crash of 1929 was almost unprecedented; grown men who had never been without a job suddenly found themselves out of work, sometimes with little hope of ever being the family breadwinner again. The burden of making money to support the family often went to the young teenagers, usually just boys but sometimes teenage girls, who had to look literally all over the country to find work and send as much money as they could back home. One African-American man recalls vividly the day when his father told him that they could not afford to feed him anymore and that he would have to strike out on his own despite his still being a teenager. Indeed, the average person hopping freight trains was a hungry, financially desperate teenager who wanted to try their luck in other parts of the country. Yes, a few of the young people wanted adventure and the thrill of being a rebel; but I still had the distinct impression that they also needed the money no matter what they said in that archival footage. They all looked hungry and most of them were quite thin at that time.
Believe it or not, I'm not giving it all away (I don't want to spoil this for you); there's plenty more to learn from this insightful film. Just trying to jump up and onto a moving train often meant risking your life if you fell! We see the long term psychological effects of riding the rails as well as society's varying reactions to the people scrounging for a living as they rode trains from one town to another. Fortunately, there are distinctly bright spots in this story.
The DVD comes with extras. In particular, I liked the interview with writers/directors Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell; and there's a printed excerpt from a book by Errol Lincoln Uys entitled Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression. We get a slideshow of photos with music; and there are a couple of links to websites on the Internet that explore the topic of this film.
I highly recommend this fine documentary that tells the incredibly poignant tale of the teenagers and others who were so down on their luck that they had to ride freight trains all over the nation looking for work often just barely avoiding starvation even when they made their very best efforts. This is particularly useful for anyone studying American history and people who are interested in the Great Depression in particular would do well to add this to their collections.
Summary of Riding the Rails
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