Just found this 1929 sound Little Rascals railroad film shot in a Santa Fe? yard near Los Angeles. Please watch and enjoy. Don
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
When I was a member of a modular club, I showed this film non-stop in my drive-in movie module. You may have seen it at York or other shows. Every minute is action-packed, which is the main reason I chose it.
When I was kid, they'd show these alternated with 3 Stooges shorts in the afternoons. Those days are long gone.
Anyway, I remember they showed this a few times. This was before we (or anyone else) had a VHS to record it. It's online in a few places and I've watched it several times in the last year or so.
I agree that it's action packed. No RR would allow something like this to be filmed today, that's for sure!
I love it. Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting-that was GREAT!
Nick
This was a very early sound film. Most "shorts" in those years were silent. I can't even imagine that many steam engines in one place and how did Santa Fe let them film almost everything on an engine. Most of the Little Rascals were filmed on location tell Hal Roach sold the them to M-G-M. Very well done for the time. Don
A great glimpse at what being a kid would have allowed nearly 90 years ago! Fast forward those nine decades, add a bazillion regulations, legislations, litigations, and incriminations, and these scenes are now strictly verboten. But, you gotta cringe seeing them blissfully wandering around the busy yard, crawling all over the cars, standing in the middle of the tracks,........good grief!
Yep, I'm sure it's a Santa Fe yard. That steamer No. 1373 is one of 50 Baldwin Pacifics built between 1912 and 1913 as part of the 1337 Class (1337-1388). (Sure wish Scott Mann would do THAT engine group, too!!)
I loved to watch the later group of Little Rascals episodes as a kid. Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, Darla, et al...what a great bunch of fun kids!
Thanks for sharing with us!
KD
Cool, I have not seen this one so thanks for posting.
Nice way to ease into a Saturday morning, Don. So beautiful to watch those engines run.
Tomlinson Run Railroad
Good film. Never saw that one.
I watched a portion of the film.
The scene with the boy in the cab with his father running the locomotive was great.
I think it gives a good idea of why people were so fascinated by steam locomotives and why Model Railroading was such a popular hobby.
I've seen those characters before. I grew up watching Little Rascals and Our Gang shorts on T.V.
scale rail posted:Just found this 1929 sound Little Rascals railroad film shot in a Santa Fe? yard near Los Angeles. Please watch and enjoy. Don
Shot at the old Redondo Junction roundhouse. Note that the roundhouse stalls had no doors, owing to the lovely SoCal climate. Those Pacifics were frontline passenger power at that time and LAUPT hadn't been built yet. Santa Fe trains used the LaGrande station at 2nd Street and Santa Fe Ave, along the Los Angeles river. The roundhouse was torn down in August of 2000, but the turntable and garden tracks survive.
Here's a shot of the house at a later date with a 4-8-4 #3776 on the table and sister 3777's tender hanging out of one of the stalls. Another 4-8-4's tender is sticking out of the house, 2 stalls to the right of 3777.
Attachments
Images (1)
Just looking at this film has got to be some kind of illegal !
Wow!
Quintuple Likes !! What a great find.
scale rail posted:I can't even imagine that many steam engines in one place and how did Santa Fe let them film almost everything on an engine.
Notice the road name was blacked out...
WAY COOL
i NEVER SAW THAT EPISODE
Nick, I have never seen round houses with doors. Living in California for years I guess that's why. Don
I just saw a Three Stooges short "Pain the Pullman" from 1936. Ha ha, love those guys. Couldn't find a complete episode link on youtube. Maybe someone else can
Once sound came along in 1927, most comedy shorts were done with sound, although a lot of cartoons were done with music but little or no talking.
There was a couple years where they did it both ways...that is, say Laurel and Hardy would do a 'two reeler' that would be made available to theaters as either a sound movie, or a silent one with title placards. By 1929 or 1930 pretty much every theater had converted to sound.
BTW, Laurel and Hardy sometimes also did sound versions of their shorts speaking in German or Spanish!!
wjstix posted:Once sound came along in 1927, most comedy shorts were done with sound, although a lot of cartoons were done with music but little or no talking.
The bottom line was film was growing up and coming into it's own. It still hadn't lifted itself out of it's Vaudeville roots. Cartoons didn't have people saying anything in them early on because the media simply hadn't grown up yet.
Once the true potential for film was understood and studios allowed directors to push the boundaries of storytelling, you then get classics like Snow White and Gone with the Wind. There's a reason they call that the golden era of film.
Scale Rail,
Real great original Little Rascals 1929, great find and thanks for the memories!
PCRR/Dave
