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
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...
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
Released on: 2009-07-02
Documentary, TV Movie
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and in...
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...
THE WHOLE SHEBANG
Released on: 2019-09-15
Documentary, Animation
Black and white evokes nostalgia for The Great Depression. Things were so cheap, including lives. We...
The Imperial Lullaby
Released on: 2020-03-21
Documentary, History
The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminati...
Hitler's Forgotten Victims
Released on: 1997-10-02
Documentary, TV Movie, History, War
The story of black and mixed race people in Nazi Germany who were sterilised, experimented upon, tor...
Salty Dog Blues
Released on: 2012-01-01
Documentary
The film looks at men and women of color in the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1938-1975. Through chronic...
The Man Who Was There
Released on: 2013-05-03
Documentary, History
The Spanish journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales (1897-1944) was always there where the news broke out: ...
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...
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...
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...
Le Baron et l'Empereur : Japon, la voie de la guerre
Released on: 2023-10-29
Documentary, History, TV Movie
The Money Masters
Released on: 1996-01-01
History, Documentary
A documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the...
Aquí y allí: journal d'une exilée
Released on: 2020-12-01
Documentary, History
While cleaning the apartment of Lucía, her deceased grandmother, Anna finds a notebook where she dis...