8mm Forum: Black Five

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Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on April 15, 2008, 09:27 PM:

Black Five (1x400’, 1968, British Film Institute, available from Derann Film Services)

Black Five is not the typical railroad film. Many of the best of these are a Railfan’s way of preserving the images of passing trains so they can see them again, and sometimes they wind up being shadows of long gone trains and rail lines surviving well beyond the times when the original scenes have vanished. Black Five is different: just as much as it does show the trains it also allows the men who operated them to talk about their times, their passing and what it means to them. It is much more a documentary about changing times than simply scenes trackside.

The film was made in the late 1960s, when British Rail was phasing out the last Class 5MT (Black Five) 4-6-0 steam locomotives and replacing them with diesels, thereby completing the elimination of mainline steam throughout the system. Where it breaks the mold of standard railroad films is by presenting the locomotives operating and being maintained without commentary or subtitles, but at the same time firemen and drivers’ discussions of their experiences and impressions are dubbed over the location sound track. The conversation tends to loosely follow the visuals (or vice versa), but is not as if the speakers were watching the footage and directly commenting on it.

It’s not so much about where they are or where they are headed, but what they could do and what happened while they were doing it.

Watching this film was kind of a miniature research project for me at first. The railway men are often speaking in a fairly echoic room with a tape recorder, and speaking in British railroad slang. Early on, I thought “What did he say?” quite a bit, but gradually worked it all out, including stories of an inexperienced driver steaming down the tracks trainless after forgetting to couple up and another forgetting to spot his engine under the coaling tower and a couple of tons of coal pouring onto the track instead of into the tender. There is also a discussion about how the quality of coal varies from region to region: therefore the art of firing an engine on a long distance run changes every time they stop to take on coal (..something I’d never thought about before). I guess watching this one just once could be a waste of time, since I find something new every time I project it!

There are some nice action sequences, including some pretty violent shunting, some nice footage shot from the footplate of a goods train crossing pasturelands and some passing passenger trains as well. Inside the shop there is enough pounding, milling and grinding going on to satisfy any machine-tool junkie! The camera work suggests somebody that knows and loves steam locomotives: the shots of things like driving rods and valve gear are up close and personal.

My greatest gripe with this film has to be the color. My print runs very much on the blue side. The black engines are bluish black, the green grass is bluish green. Even the clouds of steam are bluish white Every so often some red pops up and it really hits your eye. If I had the choice, I’d actually prefer this one in black and white.

The audio is very good where it comes to location sound, yet it’s a shame the original filmmakers didn’t do a better job recording the voices of the railway men.

Black Five does a subtle job of showing the ending of mainline steam locomotion in Great Britain. At the beginning of the film there is a great deal of steam activity, and gradually more and more diesels are shown. Towards the end, the scenes turn to silent yards and roundhouses, and the voices comment on how children growing up will never experience the presence of a steam locomotive as their own generation did. At the end, without commentary at all, a diesel hauls a line of dead steam engines past the camera, obviously headed for the torch.

This film is available new from Derann.

Note: The BFI is releasing this film on DVD this August in commemoration of 40 years since the passing of Steam.

-Isn’t it nice to know We of the Film Fraternity have had it all along!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 15, 2008, 11:57 PM:

Steve,

Is that an actual still frame from this print you describe? The color looks quite nice to me, if it is a still frame.

Derann does tend to have a slight bluish cast to thier prints, (though aren't we lucky to have a lot O stuff on Super 8mm because of em, eh?), I notice it highly on my print of Fantasia 2000.

If the original source material has a slight cast to the color, (perhaps bluish to begin with, if it was shot in the UK, and originally developed by the same company), and then reprinted by the same film lab, then whatever blues were in the original negative would be added to even further and the bluish look to an already bluish film, would be intensified, therefore making everything even more blue?

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on April 16, 2008, 05:48 AM:

Hi Osi,

The picture shown is not from the film. It just happens to be a restored Black Five that is operating in Britain in modern times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLdVBzhyYyc&feature=related

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on April 16, 2008, 08:15 AM:

Hi Steve,
When Keith Wilton reviewed this title some years ago in S8FR he remarked about the poor colour. He said something like 'I know there's black in there somewhere'.

My copy is as you described yours, but the content does make up for the below-par colour. It went down very well at one of my shows for a local Railway Society, one of the members was at one time a fireman on a black 5.
regards,
Mal

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on April 16, 2008, 10:12 AM:

Hi Mal,

Maybe "Blue Five" would be a better title!

Agreed, the content does go a long way in this one. It's also a very subtle way of telling a story: stating no facts but allowing the viewer to figure out what's going on for themselves.

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on November 10, 2013, 05:01 PM:

Just been reading this old thread and I have a DCR print of this title and mine is just as blue as the description above. I had hoped to find that Derann prints of this were much better colour wise but mabye not from what you say.

I still like the film a lot and although I have the DVD with perfect colour I much prefer watching this 'Blue' super 8 version.

Graham S

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 10, 2013, 11:56 PM:

Yes,

The shame of it is the film is top rate content-wise, but the print is not quite up to par for showing to an audience, and basically only because the color is funky.

I probably see this one about every other month, but usually by myself.

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on November 11, 2013, 04:28 AM:

Graham, I too have both film and DVD versions of this title. As you say the colour is great on the DVD however the sound is about the same on both.

Steve, I understand your comment about the print not being up to par for a general audience but I must say I have screened the 8mm version on a 7ft screen to two separate Railway Societies. No-one mentioned the print quality but there were many positive remarks about the content. Horses for courses I suppose.

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on November 11, 2013, 07:12 PM:

I suppose it all depends on what audience you are screening it to. A railway audience would probably have seen many films on 16mm and 8mm whereas a modern audience only watch Blu Ray DVD and wonder why we would collect film at all particularly poor colour films when you can have a perfect copy on DVD.

Graham S

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 12, 2013, 04:10 PM:

I'd much rather show this as it stands than a red faded print, but then again it would be really great in black and white!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 13, 2013, 12:24 PM:

Things like this are good for giving a fella a reputation!

I can tell people I watch "blue films", just like years ago I told 'em I was "going to the track" when that really meant I was spending a weekend working at a railroad museum! [Big Grin]

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