Riding the Rails

Richard Thomas Director: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys

Overview

"Part of the American Experience series on PBS, Lexy Lovell's 1997 documentary Riding the Rails comes to DVD from WGBH Boston Video. Presented with a standard full-frame transfer and Dolby Digital Stereo soundtrack in English, the disc includes an interview with the filmmakers and an excerpt from the book Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression. Other special features include a slide show of Depression-era photos, closed captions, and web links."

Product Details

Release Date:	02/25/2003
UPC:	0783421366893
Original Release:	1997
Rating:	NR
Source:	Wgbh
Language:	English
Time:	1:12:00
Sales rank:	48,416

Special Features

Closed Caption;Interview with the filmmakers; Slide show featuring Depression-era photos; Excerpt from "Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression; Websites of interest; Scene selection; Closed captions

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Richard Thomas

Narrator

Technical Credits

Editorial Reviews

Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell put a lot of work into this informative and emotionally compelling documentary. For example, they placed a notice in several magazines to solicit life stories from people who rode boxcars as teens in the 1930s; sent replies to the approximately 3,000 people who responded to their notice; contacted the most promising 500 leads; decided on 20 former rail riders to interview; and then selected ten of these interviewees for inclusion in their film. Perhaps this is why they overdo the voice-over narration and letter excerpts in their documentary; they probably wanted to squeeze as much of their work and as many of the people they contacted as possible into their film. Fortunately, this is an intelligently structured documentary that presents the ten interviews in distinct segments and intersperses with photographs, archival footage (some of which, unfortunately, don't perfectly complement the voice-over), and an excerpt from the 1933 film Wild Boys of the Road (which was supposed to scare youngsters away from this lifestyle but apparently had the opposite effect). The interviews are presented in the standard talking-heads format, which works fine because the carefully selected interviewees have genuinely interesting stories to tell. The viewer hears about wanderlust, parental abuse, and economic hardship driving people to a transient lifestyle, the romantic appeal and the harsh realities of life on the road, and how these experiences helped shape the rest of the rail riders' lives. The documentary doesn't cover every related issue; for example, it refers briefly to racism but doesn't explore racial relations between the rail riders themselves. However, it does a superb job of conveying the experiences of the people who hopped freights during the Great Depression. The highly entertaining soundtrack features Woody Guthrie, Doc Watson, Jimmie Rodgers, and other folk and country musicians. This documentary won the Documentary Award from the Directors Guild of America and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.