Night Mail is a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film Unit. A poem by W. H. Auden was written for it, used in the closing few minutes, as was music by Benjamin Britten. The film was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and narrated by John Grierson and Stuart Legg. The Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti was sound director. The locomotive featured in the film was Royal Scot 6115 Scots Guardsman, built in 1927. The film has become a classic of its own kind, much imitated by adverts and modern film shorts.
Scenario
The film documents the way the post was distributed by train in the 1930s, focussing on the so-called Postal Special train, a train dedicated only to carrying the post and with no members of the public, travelling on the mainline route from Euston station, London to Glasgow, Scotland and on to Edinburgh and then Aberdeen. External shots include many of the train itself passing at speed down the tracks, some interesting aerial views, with interior shots of the sorting van (actually shot in studio).
As recited in the film, the poem's rhythm imitates the train's wheels as they clatter over track sections, beginning slowly but picking up speed so that by the time of the penultimate verse the narrator is at a breathless pace. As the train slows toward its destination the final verse is more sedate. The opening lines are "This is the Night Mail crossing the border / Bringing the cheque and the postal order". The copyright on the film expired after 50 years, but some sources assert that the W.H. Auden poem remains protected by copyright as a written piece. The musical score was first published in 2002.
According to Forsyth Hardy's biography of Grierson, "Auden wrote the verse on a trial and error basis. It had to be cut to fit the visuals, edited by R. Q. McNaughton, working with Cavalcanti and Wright. Many lines were discarded, ending as crumpled fragments in the wastepaper basket. Some of Auden's verbal images -- the rounded Scottish hills "heaped like slaughtered horses" -- were too strong for the film, but what was retained made Night Mail as much a film about loneliness and companionship as about the collection and delivery of letters. It was that difference that made it a work of art. Night Mail was a genuinely collaborative effort. Stuart Legg spoke the verse, timed, with Britten's music, to the beat of the train's wheels. Grierson himself spoke the moving culmination passage: "And none will hear the postman's knock without a quickening of the heart, for who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"
Legacy
On 14 May 2014, the film was one of those chosen to be commemorated in a set of Royal Mail stamps depicting notable GPO Film Unit films.
References
Notes
Bibliography
External links
- Night Mail at the Internet Movie Database
- Britmovie
- Watch the film on Youtube