Riding the Rails | 
| Directors: Rene Champion, Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Actors: C.r. 'tiny' Boland, Charley Bull, Peggy De Hart, John Fawcett, Clarence Lee
Studio: Wgbh Boston
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $5.77
You Save: $14.18 (71%)
Used (8) from $5.77
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 28699
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 72 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 3.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 6305053103
UPC: 783421278332
EAN: 9786305053101
ASIN: 6305053103
Theatrical Release Date: 1998
Release Date: March 28, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and perhaps no time in America's history has been so desperate as the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands of young men and women left home seeking work and money wherever they could find it, and many of them took to hopping trains as a means of cheap, speedy (though by no means safe) travel. Riding the Rails lets survivors tell their stories of thrills, humiliation, and boredom from a distance of 60 years. You'll be amazed at the strength and determination of these folks to survive the difficult times, and find their reminiscences beautiful, sometimes angry, sometimes poetic. Contemporary newsreel footage and songs from such depression-era chroniclers as Woody Guthrie and Jimmie Rodgers make the 1930s come alive and evoke the vitality and suffering of a generation. --Rob Lightner
Description
Don't miss this ride! Winner of 11 major awards, this rare film will inform, dazzle and profoundly move you. Archival footage and newsreel interviews with lean-bodied kids full of bravado tells the unforgettable story of 250,000 teenagers who left their homes and hopped freight trains during the Great Depression. Winner 1998 Peabody Award.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Starlight On The Rails September 1, 2008
Alfred Johnson (boston, ma)
Growing up in the 1950's I had a somewhat tenuous connection with trains. My grandparents lived close to a commuter rail that before my teenage years went out of service, due to the decline of ridership as the goal of two (or three) car garages gripped the American imagination in an age when gas was cheap and plentiful. In my teens though, many a time I walked those above-mentioned abandoned tracks to take the short route to the center of town. As an adult I have frequently ridden the rails, including a cross-continental trip that actually converted me to the virtues of air travel. Of course, my `adventures' riding the rails is quite different than that being looked at in this American Experience documentary about a very, very common way for the youth of America to travel in the Depression-ridden 1930's, the youth of my parents' generation. My own experiences were merely as a paying passenger. Theirs was anything but. The only common thread between them and me is the desire expressed by many interviewees to not be HERE but to be THERE.
This tale of a significant number of youth in the 1930's is held together by film footage of the time, some nice background music from the likes of Jimmy Rodgers and Doc Watson that evokes the `romance of the rails' and `talking head' interviews with the itinerant travelers, male and female. Despite various motives from the desire to leave their parents' houses to being thrown out during those tough times the stories they tell are of cold nights in open box cars, overcrowded jails, beatings by the ever present railroad "bulls" and looking for a little work to move on to the next locale and maybe some `peace'. Mainly this was the eternal heading West of the Frederick Turner Jackson thesis- with this proviso- by then the land had run out and maybe the possibility of the dreams. A few interviewed are still driven by the lore of the rails, many had no regrets but mainly this is a very interesting trip down memory lane in a time before the automobile became readily accessible to teenagers.
No review of the life of the rails can omit the special jargon developed by those on the road, the `class' distinctions (hobo, bum, and tramp) between them and the rough and ready `code of honor' of the rails (honored more in the breach than in the practice from what I can gather). This tradition has survived best in song by the likes of Woody Guthrie in any number of his songs written in the 1930's, the classic Elizabeth Cotton song Freight Train and the work, including a song with the same title as the headline to this piece, of the recently deceased old Wobblie, folksinger, writer and rail rat extraordinaire Utah Phillips. Starlight On The Rails, indeed!.
Great of Teenagers April 14, 2008
M. Hardrict
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am a history teacher and showed this movie to my students and they really enjoyed it. It talked about childern their age (15).
Very Insightful August 7, 2006
Robert Cranmer (Pittsburgh, PA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Centers upon teens force to leave home looking for work and adventure during the great drepression. Keeps your attention through the enitre film.
WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THE DEPRESSION -- BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE TEEN HOBOS? November 9, 2005
Heather L. Parisi (Pekin, IN USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Sure, the Great Depression is a part of history that has been studied, examined, exposed and studied some more, but until now the story of 250,000 teen hobos who spent years "Riding the Rails" went largely untold.
WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
This DVD examines the lives of over a dozen Depression-era, freight-train stowaways who spent many of their teen years on the bum, traveling by rail throughout America looking for something better. But what and why? A very diverse group of former rail riders were interviewed including men and women, white and black, but all were teens at the time. This documentary delves into what motivated them and what it was like to be a teenager "riding the rails". In looking at this small group we do see a pattern and reasons which motivated this relatively large group of underaged runaways to choose such a difficult and risky lifestyle.
There are some photographs and archival photos and movietone-news-style film excerpts from the Depression era shown to give perspective. We also see an excerpt of a feature film "Riding The Rails - Teenagers On The Move" made to dissuade youngsters from taking up the lifestyle. Of course it only encouraged more rail runaways despite the tragic depictions of the film. It seems incomprehensible that so many children would take to riding the rails, but they did. This is their story.
All in all, this is a very worthwhile documentary about an almost forgotten piece of American history.
ABOUT THE DVD:
This DVD is part of the "AMERICAN EXPERIENCE" series produced by WGBH - BOSTON. An interview with the filmmakers is included as well as a "slide-show" featuring Depression-era photos. Web sites of interest are also included. It has the scene selection feature and closed captions available.
Riding the Rails August 22, 2005
John Farr
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Featuring archival footage of the period and a folk song score from Woody Guthrie (and other balladeers of the time), the films' most memorable sequences are the interviews with the now elderly, respectable folks who eked out existences as young hoboes during the Depression, but still recall the sheer romance and adventure of hopping those freights. A heartwarming glimpse into a defining moment for our country, and how a hearty generation adapted.
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