Riding the Rails (1997)
• January 1st, 1997 • 1h 12min
Documentary
Overview
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.
Make sure to check your pop-up blocker!!
Trailer
Similar Movies
Legends in Light: The Photography of George Hurrell
Released on: 1995-01-16
Documentary
The life and career of legendary Hollywood glamour portrait photographer George Hurrell is profiled ...
The Olympic Dream: 1936 Nazi Games
Released on: 2016-01-11
Documentary, History
Leni Riefenstahl's flamboyant Nazi aesthetics shaped the public image of the 1936 Olympics. Never be...
Landauer: Gefeiert, verbannt, vergessen
Released on: 2014-09-18
Documentary
Documentary about Kurt Landauer, the long-time Jewish president of FC Bayern München, who led the cl...
World's Greatest Logging Site
Released on: 1938-02-01
Documentary
A documentary short on logging during winter season.
Nanking
Released on: 2007-02-10
Documentary, Drama, History
The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Ja...
Stolen Kisses: Homosexual Love in Fascist Italy
Released on: 2021-02-14
Documentary, History
Through letters, diaries and personal testimonies, an account of the complexity and variety of exper...
Eliot Ness vs. Al Capone
Released on: 2009-03-29
Documentary, History, TV Movie
January, 1947. The public receives the news of Al Capone's death with indifference, although twenty ...
Living the Utopia
Released on: 1997-11-08
Documentary, History
A retrospective look at the anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist experience in Spain from 1930 ...
Land Without Bread
Released on: 1933-12-01
Documentary
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extrem...
La ruta de don Quijote
Released on: 1934-01-01
Documentary
A poetic journey through the paths and places of old Castile that were traveled and visited by the m...
Hitler: A Career
Released on: 1977-07-08
Documentary, History
A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the T...
The Living
Released on: 2009-01-01
Documentary
Tells the story of the tragic events in Ukraine in 1932-33, the genocidal Great Famine or the Holodo...
Hitler's Evil Science
Released on: 2019-05-25
Documentary, History, TV Movie
In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scienti...
The American Hobo: History of the Railriding Worker
Released on: 2003-01-01
Documentary
Documentary - Ernest Borgnine, star of the classic train movie Emperor of the North, hosts and narra...
The Massie Affair
Released on: 2005-04-18
Documentary
In the waning days of summer 1931, Honolulu's tropical tranquility was shattered when a young Navy w...
Bugatti: A Thirst for Speed
Released on: 2018-03-11
Documentary, History, TV Movie
The story of the Bugattis of Milan and Molsheim, the eccentric family behind the brand: Carlo, the p...
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Released on: 2018-06-06
Documentary
The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy La...
Blood Money: Inside the Nazi Economy
Released on: 2021-02-02
History, War, Documentary, TV Movie
How did Nazi Germany, from limited natural resources, mass unemployment, little money and a damaged ...