"Toccata For Toy Trains" Time To Look Back At Our History Of Toy Trains and Our Hobby

The one and only true art masterpiece film about toy trains! Imaginatively done with a musical score to match. Highly entertaining and definitely in a class by itself. Warrants repeated viewings even by non-train folks.

Wow!  Very imaginative and creative short film!!  Bernstein's music compliments the visual wonderfully leaving the film with an endearing charm.  Well done!  

 Elmer Bernstein is one of the great film composers!  He was also a fine orchestra conductor.  In addition to The 10 Commandments, he composed for a wide array of films including The Great Escape, The Wild West, Blue Brothers, Animal House, Air Plane, and Age of Innocence to name few.

Scale Rail -Thanks for sharing this artistic gem! 

@scale rail posted:

The husband and wife team of Charles  and Ray Eames made this short wonderful film in 1957. The music is composed by Elmer Bernstein, oh he also did the score for "The Ten Commandments and many other scores you have heard. I watch this film every few years just to see the roots of our hobby. If you have never seen it before, your in for a treat. If you have seen it before it's time to enjoy it again. Don

Amazing!   thanks for that

Wonderful entertaining film. Thanks, Don, for sharing it. Arnold

@scale rail

Don:

Thank you for sharing the film. The toys and the effects in the film are amazing! I second Pat's (trumptrain) comments about the score by Elmer Bernstein. This film was a true joy! Thank you again for sharing it.

Great animation, and some of the figures are fantastic.  The colors are so cheerful to watch as they appear to come to life'. Very nice, and thanks for posting Don'...😃⭐👍⭐😁

Awesome!, a delightful film that really brings "toy trains" to life. Thoroughly enjoyed this, thanks for posting it! 

This enchanting film captures the very essence of what toy trains were intended to achieve. Visual poetry as it were.

brings a smile to your face. thanks of posting this. 

Thank you very much for posting this Don.  I've seen this before and I'm sure I have it on tape but every now and then its great to stop what you are doing and watch this one more time.  It was a wonderful break in a busy day.

Lou N

That made my day !  Thank you 

Lou, years and years ago I rented a 16mm version of this film and showed it to a large local TCA meeting one night in the Bay Area. What a hit. We had a large group of lads my age now and they loved it. This is the best copy I have seen in a long time. Wish there was a story about the making of this film. I'm sure they shot it in 16mm on Eastman stock and had the prints made by Technicolor. Glad you watch it as much as I do. About every five years. Don

That was really neat to watch.  Thanks for sharing it!

-Greg 

Wouldn't it be intriguing if this was the foundational inspiration for Shining Time Station?

Andre

Don : I have two versions of this unique wonderful film on the same commercially produced VHS tape: One is a British version from a rare Technicolor print #257. This version is also longer and edited differently from the American print. The second version is the US print having been done in inferior Eastman Color (editor's comment, and not mine).

That film is brilliant on so many different levels. What a great wat to experience  Pre-WWI toys and trains.

NO surprise that the Eames were creative industrial designers who also did many (over 100) other notable short films in the period of Toccata, including the classic, The Powers of Ten.

I have seen this film at least 50 times and discover something new every time. What strikes me is the date, 1957. If we go back 50 years that is 1897, before Lionel even existed. If we go plus 60 years, that puts us at 2017, or three years ago. Another perspective is that if we made this film today the antiques would be late postwar, early MPC and Tyco. Miketg

Miketg: Valiant try, but I did not quite get your relativistic point. This film likely could NOT have been made at any later period and been so charming and chuck full of Lehmann tin toys and the various tinplate trains of the period from which they originated. Best NOT to over-analize a great work of ART by trying to sort the progeny of the items therein! This is an ART film produced by two world famous ARTIST-DESIGNERS, and stands alone as a timeless work!

Tinplate Art : First I agree wonderful film and have seen it many many times. My point was in 1957 these "old" toys were maybe 40 to 60 years old and considered classics. If we were to make a simliar film today, those old toys, relatively speaking would be from the 60s and 70s. 

What I am really saying is time flies and what was new to me as a child, is now an antique, and those who played with these old trains are now in our memories.

Again, I have watched this many times and always discover something new.

Miketg

@scale rail posted:

Lou, years and years ago I rented a 16mm version of this film and showed it to a large local TCA meeting one night in the Bay Area. What a hit. We had a large group of lads my age now and they loved it. This is the best copy I have seen in a long time. Wish there was a story about the making of this film. I'm sure they shot it in 16mm on Eastman stock and had the prints made by Technicolor. Glad you watch it as much as I do. About every five years. Don

Don, I had the same experience [years and years ago] at a local TCA meet.  Fortunately we had enough old timers to fill me in on some of the details.  I remember the late Don Speidel (former TCA National President) taking the time to explain LVE (Limited Vestibule Express) and its many variations.  So much wisdom!

Lou N

Miketg: SORRY, but I am very protective of this masterpiece and will brook NO analytic speculative "post mortem" of this work of art!

I'm particularly impressed by the cinematography.  Particularly when the camera appears to go through the train starting at minute 8:50.  It's almost like drone footage today.

Rusty

And without any computerized graphics or digital manipulation! "Old School" genius all the way!

Just got out my commercially produced VHS tape which contains both the rare British Technicolor copy and also the Eastman Color US version to view tonight on my Toshiba VHS to DVD copy recorder/player.

If you ever saw "Finian's Rainbow" there is a shot through the train that is an exact version of the "Toccata" shots. Can't help but wonder if Francis Ford Coppola (this was his first directing job) saw "Toccata" in film school. Of course the shot was much easier in a real train. Don

Don: WOWSA! Priceless shots of the Eames setting up their equipment for Toccata! TOO cool for words! THANK YOU! :-)

Don: Do you have access to the 257 Technicolor print on 16 mm? Supposedly it is the best version and if it can be transferred to DVD, that would be awesome!

@trumpettrain posted:

Wow!  Very imaginative and creative short film!!  Bernstein's music compliments the visual wonderfully leaving the film with an endearing charm.  Well done!  

 Elmer Bernstein is one of the great film composers!  He was also a fine orchestra conductor.  In addition to The 10 Commandments, he composed for a wide array of films including The Great Escape, The Wild West, Blue Brothers, Animal House, Air Plane, and Age of Innocence to name few.

Scale Rail -Thanks for sharing this artistic gem! 

Elmer was the best, his score for the Great Escape has to be up their with my favorite scores, but he did a lot of great movies, one of the greats, for sure. 

Tinplate Art, I don't have the film. The guy I rented it from (Kit Parker Films) passed away and the last I heard all the 16mm/35mm films were shipped to the East somewhere. Interesting to see their camera. It's 35mm. Wonder how many prints they made in 35mm. That would be something to see. Don

If anyone likes the music enough there is a CD available. I have the original LP after they did a special recording from the film. Don

35 mm - amazing! That would be something to see!

Nicely done, it was great to see the old trains and the imaginative ways they were made and used.  I agree there is a big difference between toy trains and scale models, but I think they have the big things in common. They are both about having fun, (to me) they are about re-instilling the joy kids feel when playing, they both require creativity and imagination to enjoy them. Even the most detailed of scale layouts that do prototypical operations to have a purpose, still require imagination to bridge the elements that are not 'real', after all on a scale layout when a steam or diesel engine picks up water or fuel, it isn't and so forth, plus it takes imagination to design and build a layout (also takes imagination in justifying the hole it puts in the family budget. 

Just figured out how they did the great tracking shots of the trains moving. Some shots had the camera track but also doing a push (moving in on the train) or pull back from the train. Not a zoom shot but a push. The layout is moving not the train or camera. Wheels still turn but the train is standing still with foreground, background and track moving. Also, good for them, everything is a cut from shot to shot. Not even a dissolve. Don

Pure "old school" camera "magic" which adds immeasurably to the resulting charm of this film.