John Henry and the Railroad (2013)
This is the tale of John Henry. The one from the railroad story. Legend goes that John Henry was a freed slave. John took his only son out looking for work. He was out to make a new life for himself. He heard somethin’ about railroad work needing to be done. So that’s where he went. But trouble was just around the bend.
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Why so much hype?
Crappy film
Awesome Movie
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
It is refreshing to see a Tall Tale that is not told by a cartoon. I teach third grade, and we were learning about Tall Tales. I found this one on You Tube. My students were very attentive for the whole short film. It was more true to life. They made plenty of connection to the text they were reading. I would like to see the writer make more Tall Tales like this one.
There is an American legend that hearkens back to the days of the railroad, where John Henry worked as the man driving the steel spikes into the wood to hold the rails in place. The specific legend sees Henry driving spikes with one blow compared to the 3 or 4 of others and that, when the railroad introduced a steam-driven hammer to replace him, he challenged it to a race to finish driving the spikes in the remaining 3- mile stretch.This short film works for what it is and most of the comments you see about it do focus on what it does well, but for me it is hard not to see its own limits. The story is a big American legend of grit and determination in the old frontier days and as such it tends to get told with that big ol' American spirit of "can do" etc. As such there is not a lot of room for finesse or subtlety in the telling and this film matches that because in all aspects it is about the big broad strokes of the story and the big moments in the delivery – the smaller details and touches tend not to be as good. This means that the film looks great with good costumes, sets, music and tone and it is a nicely told version of the tale. However the smaller aspects do suffer so for example the dialogue is mostly pretty functional or corny and the performances match this, with broad characters delivered by so-so performances and a variety of odd accents.The narrator device works well (again a caricature with his "well now ol' John Henry" style, which will make fans of Harry Hill's old Channel 4 show chuckle). The song that is sung over the race itself is actually pretty good and fits with the big brash and bold approach of the film. It is worth seeing for what it does well and credit McCormick for the film he delivers in this way, but I would have liked a little more finesse in the dialogue and performances to help build upon the foundation of the mostly enjoyable broad strokes.
Nice and informational film! A great short film to watch. Fantastic acting job done by E. Roger Mitchell and Michael Iluma. Hope to see more and bigger roles from these budding stars! Really enjoyed the music at the beginning and the narration really got me into the film. Very nice effects and the film really seemed as if it were shot in the time that was portrayed. Overall fantastic job from all the actors. Hoping to show this to my kids as a fun little movie that also has a bit of educational value to it. Great job! It looks like a lot of time and effort went into the production and making of this film, and it was very well thought out. A perfect portrayal of a folk tale we are all familiar with. The length was perfect too.