During my childhood, I loved Edith Nesbit's novel "The Railway Children" and was equally fond of the film which originally came out at around the same time (1970) as I was reading the book. I am not the only one to have enjoyed the film; it enjoys classic status in Britain and is sometimes even included in lists of the "greatest films ever made".
"The Railway Children Return" is a very belated sequel to the 1970 film. Is this the first occasion on which the second episode of a franchise has appeared fifty-two years after the first? Despite the title, the film is not about the further exploits of Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter, the children featured in the novel. The story is not set in the Edwardian period but forty years later in 1944. Bobbie, now an old lady, has a role in the story, but we learn that Peter was killed in the First World War and that Phyllis is also dead, although her husband Walter appears.
The children in this film are siblings Lily, Pattie and Ted, who are evacuated from Manchester to the Yorkshire village of Oakworth, the village also featured in the original film. They are befriended by Bobbie's grandson Thomas, whose mother Annie is the headmistress of the local school. The American Army has a base nearby, and most of the story revolves around what happens after the children meet an African-American soldier named Abe McCarthy. It turns out that Abe is only 14 years old- he joined the army by lying about his age- and that he has deserted because of racist bullying by white officers and the military police. The film follows the adventures of the children as they attempt to help Abe to escape; he has plans to get to Liverpool to find a ship that will take him back to America. As in the earlier film, railways play an important part in the drama.
The film has generated a considerable amount of controversy, particularly on the political Right. There have been grumblings that the sequel has "ruined" the original film and that the racial theme is just another example of "woke" political correctness. I myself, however, would not accept these criticisms for the following reasons. Firstly, the original film still exists and is the same as it always was. Secondly, the US Army of the 1940s, like many American institutions of the period, was indeed deeply racist, and the racism which existed within its ranks is therefore a legitimate subject for a film. Thirdly, Nesbit herself was politically on the Left, a Fabian socialist and sympathetic to the "little man" taking on authority. (Remember that Russian political refugee, on the run from the Tsarist authorities, in the original?) I therefore suspect that she would not have disapproved of a sequel to her novel being used to highlight the theme of racism. Fourthly, if there seem to be a disproportionate number of films today dealing with racial themes, this is probably a backlash to those long decades during which the cinema, in both Britain and America, either ignored such themes altogether or at best only dealt with them occasionally.
Despite this, however, I still did not enjoy this film as much as I did the original. Part of the reason is that there are no acting performances that stand out in the way that those by Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins did; Agutter appears again here as the older Bobbie, but does not make the same impression that she did all those years ago. Another part of the reason is that the ending is rather disappointing, with Abe being saved from a possible death sentence for desertion by the intervention of a deus ex machina in the form of a sympathetic American General, who just happens to be black. And finally, while "The Railway Children Return" is by no means a bad film- it's heart is in the right place- for me it lacks the indefinable charm of its predecessor. But then, that predecessor is largely protected from criticism by a thick layer of childhood nostalgia. 6/10
Some goofs. We learn that the children have been evacuated from Manchester by renewed German bombing of British cities. While the Luftwaffe did indeed conduct a fresh bombing campaign ("Operation Steinbock") in early 1944, it was targeted at London, not at Northern cities. In 1944 the US Army only had one black General, Benjamin Davis, who never served in Britain. The presence of a black General also seemed to undermine the film's argument that the US Army in the forties was institutionally racist.
"The Railway Children Return" is a very belated sequel to the 1970 film. Is this the first occasion on which the second episode of a franchise has appeared fifty-two years after the first? Despite the title, the film is not about the further exploits of Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter, the children featured in the novel. The story is not set in the Edwardian period but forty years later in 1944. Bobbie, now an old lady, has a role in the story, but we learn that Peter was killed in the First World War and that Phyllis is also dead, although her husband Walter appears.
The children in this film are siblings Lily, Pattie and Ted, who are evacuated from Manchester to the Yorkshire village of Oakworth, the village also featured in the original film. They are befriended by Bobbie's grandson Thomas, whose mother Annie is the headmistress of the local school. The American Army has a base nearby, and most of the story revolves around what happens after the children meet an African-American soldier named Abe McCarthy. It turns out that Abe is only 14 years old- he joined the army by lying about his age- and that he has deserted because of racist bullying by white officers and the military police. The film follows the adventures of the children as they attempt to help Abe to escape; he has plans to get to Liverpool to find a ship that will take him back to America. As in the earlier film, railways play an important part in the drama.
The film has generated a considerable amount of controversy, particularly on the political Right. There have been grumblings that the sequel has "ruined" the original film and that the racial theme is just another example of "woke" political correctness. I myself, however, would not accept these criticisms for the following reasons. Firstly, the original film still exists and is the same as it always was. Secondly, the US Army of the 1940s, like many American institutions of the period, was indeed deeply racist, and the racism which existed within its ranks is therefore a legitimate subject for a film. Thirdly, Nesbit herself was politically on the Left, a Fabian socialist and sympathetic to the "little man" taking on authority. (Remember that Russian political refugee, on the run from the Tsarist authorities, in the original?) I therefore suspect that she would not have disapproved of a sequel to her novel being used to highlight the theme of racism. Fourthly, if there seem to be a disproportionate number of films today dealing with racial themes, this is probably a backlash to those long decades during which the cinema, in both Britain and America, either ignored such themes altogether or at best only dealt with them occasionally.
Despite this, however, I still did not enjoy this film as much as I did the original. Part of the reason is that there are no acting performances that stand out in the way that those by Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins did; Agutter appears again here as the older Bobbie, but does not make the same impression that she did all those years ago. Another part of the reason is that the ending is rather disappointing, with Abe being saved from a possible death sentence for desertion by the intervention of a deus ex machina in the form of a sympathetic American General, who just happens to be black. And finally, while "The Railway Children Return" is by no means a bad film- it's heart is in the right place- for me it lacks the indefinable charm of its predecessor. But then, that predecessor is largely protected from criticism by a thick layer of childhood nostalgia. 6/10
Some goofs. We learn that the children have been evacuated from Manchester by renewed German bombing of British cities. While the Luftwaffe did indeed conduct a fresh bombing campaign ("Operation Steinbock") in early 1944, it was targeted at London, not at Northern cities. In 1944 the US Army only had one black General, Benjamin Davis, who never served in Britain. The presence of a black General also seemed to undermine the film's argument that the US Army in the forties was institutionally racist.