Friday, July 27, 2012

Night Mail

“This is the Night Mail crossing the Border, / Bringing the cheque and the postal order”: the short film Night Mail tracks the journey of a mail train from London Euston to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen. The film is a 1936 production by the GPO [General Post Office] Film Unit, directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt, with a poem by W. H. Auden and music by Benjamin Britten. You can see Night Mail in three parts at YouTube.

Night Mail reminds me again and again of early Hitchcock: quick cuts, unintelligible dialogue, and sudden explosions of sound. The mail was moving briskly.

comments: 0