Train of Events – 1949 | 88 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Train of Events, was an unsuccessful attempt to harness several members of the team in a portmanteau film, a formula that had earlier worked superbly with Dead of Night. The plot followed the stories of three sets of people travelling on a night train from Euston to Liverpool, plus the engine driver (Jack Warner, inevitably saying farewell to Gladys Henson as his wife). The mood of each segment was deliberately contrasted, and the reasons for the presence of the passengers were revealed in flashbacks. An actor has murdered unfaithful wife, an orphan girl is in love with a fugitive German prisoner-of-war, and a famous conductor cannot choose between his wife and a glamorous pianist.

The first two of these three sequences are melodramatic, and directed by Basil Dearden, the third is an unsuccessful attempt at sophisticated comedy by Charles Crichton. The engine driver sequences were directed by Sidney Cole. The problems of characters are solved by the finality of death – the train is doomed to crash, a fact revealed near the beginning, leaving the audience to speculate on who will survive.

Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.