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Product Details

Actors:	James San Jule; Arvel 'Sunshine' Pearson; Rene Champion; Richard Thomas; Peggy De Hart; John Fawcett (II); Charley Bull; Clarence Lee; Jim Mitchell; Bob 'Guitar Whitey' Symmonds; C.R. 'Tiny' Boland
Format:	Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Director:	Michael Uys; Lexy Lovell
Release Date:	2003-02-25
Aspect Ratio:	1.33:1
Audience Rating:	NR (Not Rated)
Category:	DVD
ISBN:	1578079756
Label/Manufacturer:	WGBH BOSTON
UPC:	783421366893

Product Description

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

Product Features

Customer Reviews

Rated

on 2010-08-05

"And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity, which is - after all - where this train is going." - Bruce Catton

It's easy to romanticize life on the rails. But the Great Depression forced thousands of young Americans to leave home, hop a boxcar, and head for parts unknown. Fortunately, PBS' Riding the Rails avoids the temptation to sugarcoat hobo life.

Filmmakers Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell collected letters and filmed interviews with former hobos. The segments are moving in that their tales of hardship. While some young people left home for adventure, most were just desperate. A great interviewee is Peggy DeHart - one of the few female hobos.

In one moving scene, former hobo Charley Bull recounts how his sharecropper father told him that he had to leave home. Bull's father simply could not afford to feed him. Viewers also learn of the violent life in the hobo jungles where young people quickly learned the rules - or else.

The film discusses FDR's New Deal policies. Inevitably, viewers' reactions to these segments will depend on their politics. The filmmakers, however, deserve credit for mostly resisting the temptation to proselytize and allowing viewers to decide for themselves.

In the end, the interviewees are the stars of the film. Adolescence in the Depression may not have been what they would have chosen, but hoboing was still the great adventure of their lives. It is fascinating - but bittersweet - to hear them discuss their youth in a vanished America.

(A great nonfiction book on hobos - circa 1980 - is Ted Conover's Rolling Nowhere).

There is great historical and human interest in Riding the Rails. I give it my highest recommendation.

Rated

on 2010-02-14

A very powerful DVD about a bygone era that makes our current recession look like a day in the park!
Very informative and educational. I now really understand what my parents generation went through.

Rated

on 2009-11-07

This documentary tells the heartrending story of how young men and even some young women began hopping freight trains to find work, excitement, adventure and a better life in general during the Great Depression. We get outstanding archival footage as well as quite a bit of recent interview footage with the now elderly people who rode the freight trains back then; and this film taught me quite a lot about their lives at this point in history.

The financial depression that ensued after the stock market crash of 1929 was almost unprecedented; grown men who had never been without a job suddenly found themselves out of work, sometimes with little hope of ever being the family breadwinner again. The burden of making money to support the family often went to the young teenagers, usually just boys but sometimes teenage girls, who had to look literally all over the country to find work and send as much money as they could back home. One African-American man recalls vividly the day when his father told him that they could not afford to feed him anymore and that he would have to strike out on his own despite his still being a teenager. Indeed, the average person hopping freight trains was a hungry, financially desperate teenager who wanted to try their luck in other parts of the country. Yes, a few of the young people wanted adventure and the thrill of being a rebel; but I still had the distinct impression that they also needed the money no matter what they said in that archival footage. They all looked hungry and most of them were quite thin at that time.

Believe it or not, I'm not giving it all away (I don't want to spoil this for you); there's plenty more to learn from this insightful film. Just trying to jump up and onto a moving train often meant risking your life if you fell! We see the long term psychological effects of riding the rails as well as society's varying reactions to the people scrounging for a living as they rode trains from one town to another. Fortunately, there are distinctly bright spots in this story.

The DVD comes with extras. In particular, I liked the interview with writers/directors Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell; and there's a printed excerpt from a book by Errol Lincoln Uys entitled Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression. We get a slideshow of photos with music; and there are a couple of links to websites on the Internet that explore the topic of this film.

I highly recommend this fine documentary that tells the incredibly poignant tale of the teenagers and others who were so down on their luck that they had to ride freight trains all over the nation looking for work often just barely avoiding starvation even when they made their very best efforts. This is particularly useful for anyone studying American history and people who are interested in the Great Depression in particular would do well to add this to their collections.

Rated

on 2009-07-04

This DVD shares the stories of adults who survived the depression and for various reasons, rode the trains as teenagers during that time. Insightful to the realities of the depression for this age group in particular and the whole country in general. Relevant to economic concerns today. It brings a sense of the human side to economic struggles with the potential for inspiring one to understand how people come to find themselves in desperate situations. One can walk away with hope that this too shall pass and become aware that a little compassion goes a long way.

Rated

on 2009-06-21

Truthfully, I EXPECTED less. After some of the reviews, I thought I might be setting myself up for disappointment. NOT SO- I love first hand accounts, history from people who have lived thru the experiance. Having lived by railroad tracks most of my life, I often fantisized about the adventure. I would recomend this selection.

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