The villagers of Titfield are shocked to learn that their local branch-line railway is due to be closed, and they band together with the idea of running it themselves. Getting support from a local gentleman with an independent income, Mr Valentine, they eventually get the go-ahead for a month’s trial. They recruit various volunteers to help out, but the local private bus operators plan derail their plans, eventually in a very literal way, but with various devious plans in the interim. Depressed by the prospect of failing to make their month’s trial work, and shored up by the confidence awarded by a few stiff drinks, Valentine and Driver Taylor decide to go and get themselves another locomotive and carriage but find themselves arrested.
Rev Weech, the local vicar and steam buff, thinks of another way to get the railway back on track by “borrowing” and ancient locomotive, The Thunderbolt, from the local town hall museum. Using it and an old grounded coach body used as a home for Taylor, they get the train pulled together for the inspection and time-trial the next day.
This is a typical Ealing comedy of the middle 20th century – it has a team of gutsy locals of various types and classes banding together to stand up to the bureaucracy and the bullies, and trying to improve or preserve something about to be lost to modernism or progress. It’s charming and comforting to watch, and harks back to slower simpler, almost pastoral times, perhaps an era that never really existed outside of English movies of a that vintage, but an attractive one nevertheless. The Technicolor palette helps to give it that bleached, worn-out but still charming view of the countryside and people and reeks of nostalgia, but in a pleasing way. At the time it stood as a stark warning of the way ahead for many branch lines which would disappear under the reign of Dr Beeching, a man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.
An easy and pleasurable afternoon’s watch from the sofa after a solid lunch of Christmas leftovers, and just before a little nap.
Certificate: U
1 hour 20 mins
BBC iPlayer (until mid-January)
Director: Charles Crichton
Cast: Stanley Holloway, George Relph, Naunton Wayne, John Gregson, Gabrielle Brune, Sid James
