Terminus

Great incidental music. Kind of soulful jazz. Random shots from a day in the life of a London train terminal around 1960.

I definitely spotted Leo Mckern at a ticket window. From the ticket vendor's view.

Leo Mckern didn't feature in the credits and Terminus doesn't feature in his imdb entry. But he's definitely there. Maybe just travelling?

I can't honestly vote for this film, but not because I don't like it. I do.

Because I knew some of those responsible it would be wrong to award "Terminus" maximum marks though I would.

John Schlesinger made "Terminus" for BTF and was given a virtually free hand. All the characters were real people and the only contrived situation was the "little boy lost". He was a relative. He wasn't acting which, while a little cruel, was great film-making.

The lad had a hell of a treat later!

The Waterloo shown was real when "Terminus" was made which is why so much seems dated now. The "bag-lady" refused the amateur payment Equity had negotiated. When she died the film crew made sure she had a decent funeral. That was all they could do.

The film was ground-breaking in it's way. Ciné Vérité was never the same again.

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.

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.

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?