NFR Project: 'Hell-Bound Train' (1930)

 

Hell-Bound Train

Dir: James Gist, Eloyce Gist

Scr: James Gist, Eloyce Gist

Pho: N/A

Ed: N/A

Premiere: 1930

52 min.

This remarkable piece of filmmaking comes from two people with no professional film experience. They were a married couple, evangelical preachers, and they thought that creating and showing a film illustrating the wages of sin would augment their sermons. What they produced is a crude but effective piece of guerilla filmmaking.

It is thought that the film would be set up and shown in the church of whatever place they were visiting. The film is made of several interchangeable episodes, which could be spliced together as the Gists saw fit for a particular showing/service. Undoubtedly, the two thought that the special virtues of film would bring their points home more strongly.

In this silent, shot on 16 millimeter film, the Devil (a man masked and in a complete devil suit, with horns and tail) is the engineer on the Hell-Bound Train (many shots of moving trains were taken in a train yard and elsewhere). There are many opportunities to get a ticket for the Train – the price being your life and soul.

What are these sins? DANCING, for one. Leads straight to Hell. Also jazz, gambling, murder, drinking . . . Each episode gives us an individual who makes the wrong choice, and winds up dead or in jail, after which the Devil appears, rejoicing and kicking up his heels. These cautionary tales were intended to frighten the viewer into spiritual obedience.

The film is shot without a tripod, so the entire enterprise is shaky. The lighting is crude, the acting is wooden, and once you have the general idea, the film is repetitive. But for those churchgoers who had never seen Satan perform before got their money’s worth out of their offering.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: All Quiet on the Western Front.