Riding the Rails DVD

Release Year: 1997

Runtime: 72 min

Directors: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys

Cast: Richard Thomas

Studios:

Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film's subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes' trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks, where the surging impact of sound and movement resuscitates memories of a shattered adolescence and devastating rite of passage.

Special Features:

Interview with the filmmakers

Slide show featuring Depression-era photos

Excerpt from Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression

Web sites of interest

Scene selection

Closed captions

Technical Specifications:

• Color
• Dolby Digital
• DVD