Waste of time

Good concept, poorly executed.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This silly safety short film really doesn't help any with safety, except it teaches not to be incredibly stupid. The movie is about half narration and half is about a family on a farm talking to a cop. We start the film off seeing the cop at the funeral for Frank Jr., which could have been avoided. Frank and his girlfriend Betty could've avoided death by simply not being so stupid. They look backwards and wave at Frank's brother for about 30 seconds before they finally get hit by a train. Is this really a safety video, or is it simply a short produced by the railroads to say that it's never their fault? The whole thing is very corny, and unhelpful, and the only positive is some surprisingly fresh camera work for such a dumb project.My rating: BOMB/****. 25 mins.

For those who don't know, Operation Lifesaver is that company that is really into preventing train-car accidents. You might see their logo on some train locomotives. But Operation Lifesaver's from the early 70s, and this film was the 50s! This has a strong message about railroad crossing safety. They didn't have the striped gates back then; all they had were lights, bells, and occasional wig-wag signals.The acting is kind of bad, and so is the overuse of stock footage.However, you get to see a lot of neat classic Union Pacific trains (they're all diesel locomotives, since steam engines were obsolete back then and the electric locomotives didn't get popular until recently). I must admit, the train sound effects sound REALLY old. They use those old deep foghorn-like train horns. Those type of whistles got out of date in the mid-50s, and were replaced with the train horns you hear today (even if you live slightly far from the tracks, you can still sometimes hear train horns during the winter when all the leaves are down). They could've just recorded newer train sounds and used them there, so the trains don't sound so dated.The classic cars and trucks used in this movie look really classy, too. You don't see many of THOSE driving around nowadays, do you? I also like the old stock music used here, too. It gives the movie a "sitcom" feel.But we don't get to see the actual sequence of the train striking the car! We just see the train approaching, fade to black, and then silence. Then we see the wrecked car. They could've just added a big, grinding crashing sound during the silence, with metal crunching, glass breaking, the usual stuff heard when a train destroys a car. At least THAT would be more realistic.But, I still love this cheesy, classic movie.

Some people look like cops. I don't think I could say what it is that makes someone look like a cop, but it is undeniable that some people have that cop look. One such person is William Boyett, who played cops on "Highway Patrol" and "Adam-12". He also plays a cop in this instructional short about highway safety. Specifically, Mr. Boyett plays an earnest Idaho state trooper who is absolutely dedicated to keeping people from killing themselves on the highway by playing chicken with trains.Trooper Hal, as he is known in this short, drops by the home of a farm family to give some friendly advice to the younger son, who has just got his driver's license. After some preliminaries about road signs, obeying speed limits, and general highway safety, Hal gets to the real point of his talk: don't play chicken with trains.Will the boy (and his dull-witted older brother) heed Hal's friendly advice? Or will one of them wind up as the subject of the kind of instructional short designed to scare the wits out of driver ed students? Oh, wait - .... Anyhow, Hal deals with the tragedy of drivers who insist on playing chicken with trains (and come a cropper as a result) by redoubling his efforts. In a steely authoritative voice-over, he publicly declares his dedication to keeping the roads safe. This declaration is followed by footage of state troopers from various Western states saluting smartly.

Last clear Chance is a mercifully short film (although it feels like it lasts forever) about watching out for trains at rail crossings. About the only good thing I can say about this short is that it's in color. Everything else is just plain terrible. Bad acting, overly predictable script, and some stock footage shoot it down.