Terminus

Well it's a very brave beekeeper who opens this documentary about an hectic twenty-four hours at London's Waterloo station, to the south of the Thames. These bees, however, are quite symbolic of what we see for the next half hour as the station manager checks in at the start of the morning rush hour. What's curious to note here is just how diverse those travelling passengers are. From the successful businessman buying his buttonhole upon arrival to those coming from further afield or destined for outward journeys - including the boat train to connect with the Queen Elizabeth in Southampton. There's even a few detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure! It's buzzing. Constant movement, chatter, a fellow with a seriously annoying laugh, rushing about - the general sense of all kinds of humanity in one place is well captured in this engaging fly-on-various-walls presentation. The logistics of keeping these steam trains running, of the manual signal operations, a constantly busy enquiry and lost property office and the meticulous planning of a staff who can keep trains moving to a schedule that would be nigh-on impossible to re-set should the momentum is lost is also well featured in this narration-free real life drama. Hats! Maybe it's a generational thing, but almost everyone wears an hat. If only onboard catering was this good nowadays, and I wonder if there is still a train to Clapham Junction every four minutes! Anyone need a brolly?

This fly on the wall-style documentary from 1961 won an Oscar for best documentary. It is about an average day in the life of a busy train station. By todays standards it looks dated but the camera work and pace of the film are quite ahead of their time. It doesn't go on and on like most boring docu's, but just shows us the facts, how they are (a family saying goodbye to a relative leaving on a train, a little boy who gets lost) and nothing more. We make up our own minds. It is easy to see where a lot of modern film-makers might have stolen their ideas from. Not a great film, but not a bad one either.

This documentary, from the very first shot of the bee keeper on the roof of Waterloo station, gives a riveting, imaginative and very witty picture of a typical day in the life of a large railway station, but it's main value in the insight it gives into human nature - by simply looking at people going about their daily business the camera paints a many-layered picture of the human psyche. Always fascinating, often funny and sometimes frightening, this film must be one of the greats of documentary cinema. I hope the sad death of John Schlesinger will prompt a revival of his early - and definitely his greatest - films.

I was first led to view this documentary some years ago after seeing a clip used in a BBC Timeshift programme called 'The Nation's Railway: The Golden age of British Rail'. We had a child who was keen on trains at the time. Waterloo is 'our' London station as well, which makes it fascinating as we are so familiar with it.

Recently we bought a DVD of "Billy Liar", and you can see the same well-observed style there. I love the lack of commentary, although we know that they are not quite all natural events we are watching. However, there is a good range of happenings and characters here. Thank you to PhilAP for informing us about the "bag-lady" and what happened after the funeral. I wonder whether Equity negotiated payments for all of the (speaking) members of the public in the film? I would be interested to know more about who they were and what happened to them.

It's a day in the life of Waterloo Station, the London train terminus, as seen through the eyes of the camera, with a jazz score.

It was directed by John Schlesinger just before he began his period as one of film's top directors. His period doing documentaries for the BBC was at an end, and so British Transport figured it was a good idea to hire him for another of their series of documentaries about train stations. Good call: it win a raft of awards, and meant he was ready to direct features. Also to begin a series of films with Julie Christie. It hurt neither of their careers.