All Aboard - Trains in Movies

[jakeem]

The 1999 movie version of "The Wild, Wild West," which starred Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Salma Hayek, featured a private train loaded with futuristic gadgets -- just like the one on the 1960s TV series.

 

 

[DownGoesFrazier]

Back on the bus. Roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour.

 

 

 

 

Back to the Beatles again? Didn't the Stones ever ride a bus?

[DownGoesFrazier]

I'm sure they did. I do remember seeing a Stones documentary

where they rode on a train between UK concerts, circa 1966.

They had their chance to make a bus film, but instead they

went with Between the Buttons, about a late night shopping

spree at Marks & Spencer.

The bus film would have had Jackie Gleason reprising his Ralph Kramden role as the bus driver.

[jakeem]

Another 007 train fight scene. In "Live and Let Die" (1973) -- Sir Roger Moore's first outing as James Bond -- the British secret agent foils an attack by henchman Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris).

 

 

[jakeem]

And another 007 train struggle. In "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), Moore's Bond clashes with the hired killer called Jaws (Richard Kiel).

 

 

[jakeem]

"The Human Comedy" (1943) begins with a memorable scene in which young Ulysses Macauley (Jackie "Butch" Jenkins) waves to a hobo riding the rails.

 

 

[jakeem]

Tallyho! There are several tense moments at a railway station and aboard a train during the final stages of John Sturges' "The Great Escape" (1963).

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbVCgc-4zj8

[jakeem]

The beginning of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989) is an origins tale involving the young Indy (River Phoenix) and a chase aboard a circus train.

 

 

 

 

[jakeem]

In "Throw Momma from the Train" (1987), Owen Lift (Danny De Vito) decides to get rid of his overbearing mother (Anne Ramsey). So he tries to persuade writer Larry Donner (Billy Crystal) to do the dirty work for him. Ramsey received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance. 

 

 

[jakeem]

At the begininning of Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited" (2007), a businessman (Bill Murray) in India rushes to catch a departing train. But Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody) turns out to be faster than he.

 

 

[FredCDobbs]

UNION PICIFIC, 1939

 

 

 

 

 

The real Union Pacific, 1869:

 

[jakeem]

In "Schindler's List," Steven Spielberg's 1993 Oscar-winning World War II drama, German businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) rescues Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Sir Ben Kingsley) from a train trip to a concentration camp.

 

 

[jakeem]

Schindler also uses his persuasive skills to rescue dozens of Jewish women and children already in Auschwitz. Thanks to his efforts, they are placed on a train headed for his new munitions factory.

 

 

[jakeem]

In "The Train Robbers" (1973), a man named Lane (played by John Wayne) agrees to help a comely widow (Ann-Margret) in her search for gold stolen by her late husband years before.

 

 

[jakeem]

Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), falsely convicted of murder, escapes a bus crash AND avoids a train wreck in the 1993 screen version of "The Fugitive."

 

 

[jakeem]

Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) and two fellow convicts (John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson) flee a Mississippi chain gang and chase a passing freight train in the Coen Brothers' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
(2000).

 

 

[FredCDobbs]

HIGH NOON

 

[jakeem]

Jenny Agutter starred in "The Railway Children," a 1970 British drama about the Waterbury siblings -- Londoners who move with their mother to a different life in Yorkshire. Their new home is near the Great Northern and Southern Railway, where the Waterburys spend a lot of time. The film was directed by actor Lionel Jeffries ("The First Men in the Moon," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"), who adapted the screenplay from the 1906 children's book by E. Nesbit.

 

Thirty years later, Agutter starred in a new version of the story for British television and the PBS series "Masterpiece Theatre." She played the Waterbury children's mother in that one.

 

 

[jakeem]

There are two noteworthy train scenes in "Superman" (1978). In the first, a young Clark Kent (Jeff East) -- on his way home after school -- outraces a speeding train. In the other, the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) literally puts his body on the line to prevent a rail disaster.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkMj7nBKYp0

[lydecker]

Murder in the Private Car with Charles Ruggles and Una Merkel.

 

 

[TheGayDivorcee]

The Jewel in the Crown (Granada TV series) has a memorable train scene. One of the group -- Ahmed Kasim-- in a specific first-class compartment is a Moslem. A crescent is marked on the outside of the compartment when the train leaves the station.  The trains stops after a while. Hindus pull Ahmed Kasim out of the marked compartment and kill him. The Hindus then turn to the English people in the compartment and say, "Sorry to have disturbed you!"

 

I remember that scene vividly!  

[DownGoesFrazier]

Then there would be no need for the Rolling Stones.

It IS hard to picture Ralph Kramden singing "Sympathy For the Devil".

[MarshaKatz]

Thanks for all your responses. Since my original post, I've added a few more movies with memorable train moments:

 

Take The Money And Run - The subway scene where Virgil Starkwell is trying to ignore an elderly woman being mugged by reading a magazine. Sylvester Stallone is one of the muggers.

 

The Sting - The poker game aboard the train to Chicago. Paul Newman in one of his best performances as Henry Gondorf and of course Robert Shaw as Doyle Lonergan.

 

Suspicion - Cary Grant as John Aysgarth meets Joan Fontaine as Lena in the first class compartment and doesn't have the train fare for first class but charms Lena into "helping" him pay the conductor.

 

Knight Without Armour - Robert Donat searching for Marlene Dietrich in the Red Cross tent and realizes she's on the train - Donat jumps aboard the train and screams out "Alexandra, Alexandra" and Dietrich replies "Here I am" as the train pulls away with the two lovers reaching out to each other.

 

Midnight - Claudette Colbert wakes up on the train in Paris without any luggage in the pouring rain and broke. Terrific extremely funny movie with wonderful performance by John Barrymore.

 

Falling In Love - Every scene with Meryl Streep & Robert De Niro on the L.I.R.R. commuter train. One of my favorite Robert De Niro films.

 

Indescretion of an American Wife - Wonderful movie taking place in the Rome train station with excellent performances by Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift.

 

The Bandwagon - Fred Astaire singing "I'll Go My Way By Myself" with the train alongside in New York's Grand Central Station.

 

Grand Central Murder - Love this film - love Van Heflin.

 

Random Harvest - Greer Garson boarding the train prior to her ocean voyage and Ronald Colman saying goodbye and as the train departs and "Margaret/Paula" looks out the window with the steam from the engine engulfing her face, Charles Rainer "Smithy" starts to remember. One of the greatest love stories ever on film.

 

White Heat - The opening scene with the train robbery starring the incomperable James Cagney as Cody Jarrett shooting the engineers.

 

Sooo many more memorable movie moments.

[Swithin]

Has no one mentioned Anna Karenina's suicide, by throwing herself in front of a train? Such an integral part of the story!

 

 

 

[Fuster]

I vote for La Bete Humaine with Jean Gabin.