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The husband and wife team of Charles  and Ray Eames made this short wonderful film in 1957. The music is composed by Elmer Bernstein, oh he also did the score for "The Ten Commandments and many other scores you have heard. I watch this film every few years just to see the roots of our hobby. If you have never seen it before, your in for a treat. If you have seen it before it's time to enjoy it again. Don

Last edited by scale rail
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Wow!  Very imaginative and creative short film!!  Bernstein's music compliments the visual wonderfully leaving the film with an endearing charm.  Well done!  

 Elmer Bernstein is one of the great film composers!  He was also a fine orchestra conductor.  In addition to The 10 Commandments, he composed for a wide array of films including The Great Escape, The Wild West, Blue Brothers, Animal House, Air Plane, and Age of Innocence to name few.

Scale Rail -Thanks for sharing this artistic gem! 

@scale rail posted:

The husband and wife team of Charles  and Ray Eames made this short wonderful film in 1957. The music is composed by Elmer Bernstein, oh he also did the score for "The Ten Commandments and many other scores you have heard. I watch this film every few years just to see the roots of our hobby. If you have never seen it before, your in for a treat. If you have seen it before it's time to enjoy it again. Don

Amazing!   thanks for that

Lou, years and years ago I rented a 16mm version of this film and showed it to a large local TCA meeting one night in the Bay Area. What a hit. We had a large group of lads my age now and they loved it. This is the best copy I have seen in a long time. Wish there was a story about the making of this film. I'm sure they shot it in 16mm on Eastman stock and had the prints made by Technicolor. Glad you watch it as much as I do. About every five years. Don

Don : I have two versions of this unique wonderful film on the same commercially produced VHS tape: One is a British version from a rare Technicolor print #257. This version is also longer and edited differently from the American print. The second version is the US print having been done in inferior Eastman Color (editor's comment, and not mine).

Last edited by Tinplate Art

Miketg: Valiant try, but I did not quite get your relativistic point. This film likely could NOT have been made at any later period and been so charming and chuck full of Lehmann tin toys and the various tinplate trains of the period from which they originated. Best NOT to over-analize a great work of ART by trying to sort the progeny of the items therein! This is an ART film produced by two world famous ARTIST-DESIGNERS, and stands alone as a timeless work!

Last edited by Tinplate Art

Tinplate Art : First I agree wonderful film and have seen it many many times. My point was in 1957 these "old" toys were maybe 40 to 60 years old and considered classics. If we were to make a simliar film today, those old toys, relatively speaking would be from the 60s and 70s. 

What I am really saying is time flies and what was new to me as a child, is now an antique, and those who played with these old trains are now in our memories.

Again, I have watched this many times and always discover something new.

Miketg

@scale rail posted:

Lou, years and years ago I rented a 16mm version of this film and showed it to a large local TCA meeting one night in the Bay Area. What a hit. We had a large group of lads my age now and they loved it. This is the best copy I have seen in a long time. Wish there was a story about the making of this film. I'm sure they shot it in 16mm on Eastman stock and had the prints made by Technicolor. Glad you watch it as much as I do. About every five years. Don

Don, I had the same experience [years and years ago] at a local TCA meet.  Fortunately we had enough old timers to fill me in on some of the details.  I remember the late Don Speidel (former TCA National President) taking the time to explain LVE (Limited Vestibule Express) and its many variations.  So much wisdom!

Lou N

Wow!  Very imaginative and creative short film!!  Bernstein's music compliments the visual wonderfully leaving the film with an endearing charm.  Well done!  

 Elmer Bernstein is one of the great film composers!  He was also a fine orchestra conductor.  In addition to The 10 Commandments, he composed for a wide array of films including The Great Escape, The Wild West, Blue Brothers, Animal House, Air Plane, and Age of Innocence to name few.

Scale Rail -Thanks for sharing this artistic gem! 

Elmer was the best, his score for the Great Escape has to be up their with my favorite scores, but he did a lot of great movies, one of the greats, for sure. 

Nicely done, it was great to see the old trains and the imaginative ways they were made and used.  I agree there is a big difference between toy trains and scale models, but I think they have the big things in common. They are both about having fun, (to me) they are about re-instilling the joy kids feel when playing, they both require creativity and imagination to enjoy them. Even the most detailed of scale layouts that do prototypical operations to have a purpose, still require imagination to bridge the elements that are not 'real', after all on a scale layout when a steam or diesel engine picks up water or fuel, it isn't and so forth, plus it takes imagination to design and build a layout (also takes imagination in justifying the hole it puts in the family budget

 

 

Just figured out how they did the great tracking shots of the trains moving. Some shots had the camera track but also doing a push (moving in on the train) or pull back from the train. Not a zoom shot but a push. The layout is moving not the train or camera. Wheels still turn but the train is standing still with foreground, background and track moving. Also, good for them, everything is a cut from shot to shot. Not even a dissolve. Don

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