Revisting the Great Locomotive Chase

 

A few years ago, I wrote briefly about the 1956 Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase, comparing it to Buster Keaton's comedy The General, since both were based on the same historical incident. 

I hadn't known the Disney film had been novelized until I ran across that novelization in a used bookstore. Naturally, I was obligated by Law and Nature to buy it. Written by MacLennan Roberts, the book uses both the film and historical documents to bring the story of the Andrews Raid to life.

Andrews--a spy for the Union during the Civil War--led a team of twenty men behind enemy lines and captured a train. Their intent was to burn key bridges as they rode north. They were foiled by the incredible persistance of the train's conductor, who relentless pursued them on foot, by hand car and by other trains he commandeered along the way. At one point, he was following them on a train that was running in reverse. 

It's an exciting piece of real-life history. The Disney film is a relatively accurate recreation of the event. The book retains and perhaps even expands this historical verisimilitude, with excellent prose and story construction. The action is exciting and the various characters all given their own personalities. 

There is one interesting thing to note about the novelization. The movie did not directly discuss the causes of the Civil War. Nor did it need to do so, just as a novel set in World War II doesn't necessarily need to discuss the politics and morality of the overall war. 

The book was also under no obligation to discuss the war's causes either. But it includes a very well-written scene in which some of the Union spies, posing as Confederates before the raid begins, stay with a Southern family. At first, at least one of the spies is beginning to feel guilty about lying to a nice family. Then word arrives about an escaped slave. The head of the family takes his dogs out to hunt down the slave, while the inate hatred of the slaves among the rest of the family becomes palpable. Even the otherwise genial matriarch casually expresses this hatred both in speech and mannerisms. 

There is no hint of the "Lost Cause" myth here. The book makes it very clear that slavery and the evils it generates are the main reasons the war is being fought. I found this very interesting--in 1956, the Lost Cause myth was still pretty prevelant in pop culture. We still end up respecting the train conductor for his tenacity and courage in chasing down the stolen train, but this passage makes it clear that there was no moral equivalency betwen the Union and the Rebs. 

So The Great Locomotive Chase is yet another item to keep an eye out for when you visit used bookstores. 

The General and The Great Locomotive Chase

In April 1862, a Union spy named James J. Andrews and about 20 compatriots planned to steal a Confederate train (nicknamed "The General") in Georgia, then drive it north while burning bridges behind them. The idea was to disrupt vital Confederate supply lines.

Unfortunately for Andrews and his men, the stubborn efforts of a Southern conductor named William Allen Fuller got them all caught after a long chase through Georgia and Tennessee.

The historical raid is in itself a fascinating story of courage and determination. There's a pretty nifty web site here:

Andrews' Raid

that gives a step-by-step account of the action. Check it out if you're interested.

We, though, will be concentrating on the two excellent (and in one case--classic) films that were inspired by the Raid.

The General (1927) might very well be the funniest movie ever made. Quite properly eschewing historical accuracy, The General takes the idea of a stolen train and a chase involving locomotives to set up some of the most innovative sight gags and physical comedy ever put on film.

Buster Keaton--the funniest man ever--plays the lead role. He's the General's engineer and when the Union raiders steal his beloved train (and inadvertently kidnap Keaton's erstwhile girlfriend), Keaton pursues them relentlessly.

What follows is comedy heaven. Much of Keaton's comedy revolved around a sort of undeclared war between himself and an assortment of mechanical/inanimate objects. In The General, this theme is built upon magnificently. It literally doesn't get any better than this.

And the gags are all the funnier when you remember that these were done without any special effects. That's really Keaton on a real train that's really moving, really doing all that stuff.

Take a look at this clip from The General, which includes some interesting commentary.

In 1956, Walt Disney used Andrews' Raid as the plot for The Great Locomotive Chase, with Fess Parker as Andrews and Jeffrey Hunter as conductor William Fuller.

I once read that Disney made this film so that Walt would have a chance to himself play with the locomotives uses in the movie. I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, I sympathize with Walt entirely. The trains in this film are just plain fun to look at.

And the story is done well. The plot is a simplified but (for a movie) reasonably accurate recounting of the Raid. Parker (famous at the time for playing Davy Crockett) and Hunter are both very good in their roles and the story (which also includes the jail break attempted by the raiders after their capture) is exciting.

The Great Locomotive Chase is not the classic that The General is, but it is a good, solidly entertaining movie in its own right. The two films together actually make a fun double-feature, looking at two different ways of channeling a real-life event through the imaginations of creative film-makers.