Level crossing stupidity...

[PhilJ W]

I thought Jenny Augutter was only 15 or 16 when they made 'The Railway Children' which would have made Sally Thomsett about 17 or 18. I recall that Sally in an interview a few years later complained that the wardrobe mistress on the film told her that a breast band wouldn't be neccessary. I must admit that I did at one time have the hots for her, perhaps my ears were to big (She first appeared in a TV ad for hot drinks as a girl stood up on her first date).

Edited February 17, 2020 by PhilJ W

[PhilJ W]

Heres the Sally Thomsett TV ad.

 

[Compound2632]

Jenny Agutter b. 20 Dec 1952

Sally Thomsett b. 3 Apr 1950

UK release of The Railway Children 21 Dec 1970

[ejstubbs]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

UK release of The Railway Children 21 Dec 1970

 

That was the Lionel Jeffries film, which was indeed the the one I was referring to previously.  However, I had forgotten that Jenny Agutter also played Roberta/Bobbie in the BBC television series adaptation which was made in 1968 when she would have been only 16.  In that version, though, Phyllis was played by Gillian Bailey, not Sally Tomsett.  (The 1968 BBC series is available on DVD, and to stream from Amazon.)

 

Jenny Agutter also appeared in the ITV adaptation of the book made in 2000, as the children's mother.

Edited February 18, 2020 by ejstubbs

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

Jenny Agutter also appeared in the ITV adaptation of the book made in 2000, as the children's mother.

 

I remember the 2000 ITV version but not the 1968 BBC series.

[Hobby]

There have been four adaptations for TV:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Railway_Children#BBC_television_series

 

The 1968 being the most successful, but I still don't remember it! I think all of them have been overshadowed by the film...

[RJS1977]

8 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Jenny Agutter also appeared in the ITV adaptation of the book made in 2000, as the children's mother.

 

Which features the wonderful line from one of the children "Did you play on the railway line when you were our age?"

[lmsforever]

The 2000 version was not a very good rendition as the writers put characters and story lines into the show that were never in the film or the beeb version.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

The 2000 version was not a very good rendition as the writers put characters and story lines into the show that were never in the film or the beeb version.

 

Surely the measure is how it worked as an adaptation of the book, rather than as a re-hash of previous adaptations? 

 

Successful screen adaptations use the source material to address the concerns of their own time.

[lmsforever]

Maybe but  watching many new versions of programes many of them are awful  todays reruns are largely rubbish because the writers think they are better than the original .

[phil-b259]

6 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

The 2000 version was not a very good rendition as the writers put characters and story lines into the show that were never in the film or the beeb version.

 

Those 'extra story lines' are all in the book!

 

If you read the original story, as written, then you will find that there is plenty of activity which takes place away from the railway and which was not included in any of the TV / film adaptions till the ITV production.

 

The book came many, many years before TV or films so IT is the yardstick by which the authenticity of any later production should be measured.

 

The only time a TV or film production can be thought of as 'authentic' in its own right is if said production is a genuinely new work - and any follow up books / spin offs / remakes come along later.

 

 

[Reorte]

20 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Maybe but  watching many new versions of programes many of them are awful  todays reruns are largely rubbish because the writers think they are better than the original .

 

Nothing's perfect so improvement is always possible. Often it'll just end up worse, but that's not inevitable.

[jamie92208]

I think I once saw somewhere that a film usually only contains about 10% of a book's content.

 

Jamie

[jcredfer]

1 minute ago, jamie92208 said:

I think I once saw somewhere that a film usually only contains about 10% of a book's content.

 

Jamie

 

So much, I'm pleasantly [albeit sceptically] surprised.

 

Julian

 

[Compound2632]

Getting vaguely back on topic, I was sorry to see that the level crossing at Oakworth was renewed a few years ago, destroying its heritage appearance - the traditional sleeper boarding being replaced by metal plating.

[Reorte]

7 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I think I once saw somewhere that a film usually only contains about 10% of a book's content.

 

Inevitable really. How to fit a book that'll take many hours for even a fast reader to get through into a film a couple of hours long? There are obviously some things films can do quicker - show a scene in a glance that words need a while to describe, but overall books simply have more space.

 

Sometimes it works the other way around, short stories adapted in to films might need to add more. And in either case sometimes scenes need a different approach in film and on the page.

[PatB]

51 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Nothing's perfect so improvement is always possible. Often it'll just end up worse, but that's not inevitable.

Who are you, and what have you done with the real Reorte? 

[Reorte]

23 minutes ago, PatB said:

Who are you, and what have you done with the real Reorte? 

 

Nah, entirely consistent with my usual views on things - after all I did say "often end up worse." I'm always open to the possibility of improvement, I just find it highly improbable and would regard seeing it as a real novelty

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

I think I once saw somewhere that a film usually only contains about 10% of a book's content.

 

Jamie

In many cases its impracticle to follow the book. The classic case is the Hound of the Baskervilles. In the book the villain coated the hound in a substance to make it glow in the dark. In reality the substance used would have left the poor pooch dying in agony.

[Wickham Green]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

In many cases its impracticle to follow the book. The classic case is the Hound of the Baskervilles. In the book the villain coated the hound in a substance to make it glow in the dark. In reality the substance used would have left the poor pooch dying in agony.

No problem with today's CGI though !

[Compound2632]

Seen it done - 2002 film?

[Ken.W]

On 17/02/2020 at 11:19, petethemole said:

Not level crossing related but as this thread seems also to cover trespass in general, I present: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18240029.man-caught-trespassing-railway-line-fined-4-80/

 

Perhaps the magistrate was using a very old list of penalties?  I bet BTP wonder why they bother.

 

... and for failing to surrender to Court bail as well!

 

 

Further down that page, among the 'promoted stories' was an item headlined;

'Police rush to Hampshire high street after reports of person...'

Crikey, we're used to reports of the decline of the high street, but didn't realise it was getting that bad!

[Mark Saunders]

24 minutes ago, Ken.W said:

 

... and for failing to surrender to Court bail as well!

 

 

However he also gets a Criminal Record!

[kevinlms]

20 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I think I once saw somewhere that a film usually only contains about 10% of a book's content.

 

Jamie

Sometimes it works the other way and say a TV series covers much more.

 

A case in point is 'Heartbeat', it started it was set in the 1960s, when amongst other sub stories, the railway line was about to close. On the early episodes it progresses through the 60s, but later the show remained stuck in the late 60s, including when steam ought to have been replaced by diesel.

Edited February 19, 2020 by kevinlms

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Sometimes it works the other way and say a TV series covers much more.

 

A case in point is 'Heartbeat', it started it was set in the 1960s, when amongst other sub stories, the railway line was about to close. On the early episodes it progresses through the 60s, but later the show remained stuck in the late 60s, including when steam ought to have been replaced by diesel.

I think that the problem there is that they ran out of stories from the original books by Nicholas Rhea. The same has happenned with Vera and Call the Midwife so now they get teams of writers to write to a formula.

 

Al this talk about such things is probably a good sign that people are actualyy behaving themseleves on level crossings.

 

Jamie