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The Railway Children (1970)
Director: Lionel Jeffries
Movie review
From Time Out London
Spruced up in preparation for a fortieth- anniversary DVD release, Lionel Jeffries’s 1970 adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s homely children’s novel still basks in a warm, rosy glow of universal nicety. Set in the early 1900s, the story – about three well-bred kids (Jenny Agutter, Gary F Warren and the excellent Sally Thomsett) having to leave their plush London home when Father is jailed for selling state secrets – is a celebration of old-fashioned British fortitude set in an environment of steam engines, buttercups, top hats and smocks. They then spend their days by the railway, waving at passengers, preventing disasters and hanging out with Bernard Cribbins’s waggish station master. Putting aside its fusty look and feel, Jeffries’s film remains an enjoyable evocation of the time. Of course, whether today’s kids get it is open to debate.Author: Derek Adams
Time Out London Issue 2067: 1–7 April, 2010
Cast & crew
Director: Lionel Jeffries
Producer: Robert Lynn
Cast: Dinah Sheridan, Bernard Cribbins, William Mervyn, Iain Cuthbertson, Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett, Peter Bromilow, Gordon Whiting full cast
Genre(s): Children's
Duration: 108 mins
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