The Finishing Line: The Banned Public Information Film
In the 1970s Britain was a pretty dark and depressing place at times, power cuts, the 3 day week, mountains of rubbish mounting on city streets. And nowhere was the darkest felt more, than in Public Information Films of the decade. Who can forget the utterly haunting and creepy Dark and Lonely Water from 1973, or the electrifying Substations Danger from 1979? I could go on, there are many, but one of the forgotten gems of dystopian Britain in the 70s is the controversial and eventually quietly banned The Finishing Line from 1977.
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The Finishing Line is a 20 minute short-film produced by British Transport Films, to warn children about the dangers of playing on railway lines. It was directed by John Krish, who had directed a number of other public information films during the 1970s. Not strictly a public information film, in the sense that it doesn't directly and explicitly splash its warnings on the screen, instead it tells a strange, dark and surreal narrative to get its message across. In the most chilling way possible. The film was shown in its entirety on British TV a few times, and screened in some schools, before being quietly shelved, and replaced with the less graphic short-film Robbie in 1979.
The film depicts a seemingly typical British school sports day, but there is something unnerving and odd about it. Krish said in an interview about pitching the film to British Transport Film, "I came up with this idea of a sports day on the railway line, and I was absolutely sure they would turn it down so that I could get on with something else, and bugger me, they loved it. They loved it! The psychologist in the British Transport’s employ said, ‘This is exactly what we need!'" He may not have exactly told them what was to follow however. The school headmaster (in his wisdom) decides to warn children off playing on the railway lines by holding a sport events on the railway lines. Like the Hunger Games mixed with The Railway Children, things just start to get weird from there on in. The children are split into teams, and made to play a series of games. |
First they must get through the fence, to gain access to the railway lines, and then run across the tracks. Obviously not all the children make it across. The next event is stone throwing. Where the children must stand ten feet away, and hit the train. Extra points given for hitting a passenger and the driver. Next is the "last across" event, which involves a game of chicken that ends in chaos and bloody mayhem. With some dozen children getting wiped-out by the speeding train. The final task is the "great tunnel walk". Without being able to turn back, they must make their way through a dark 3-mile ling tunnel, with the danger of a train passing through it at any time. Needless to say not many out of the hundred or more that enter, make it out the other side alive.
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The already eerie atmosphere is compounded by the jolly voice of the announcer and the dispassionate adults shown picking up the dead bodies of the children. Apparently about 300 children were involved during the 5 days of shooting. And as soon as it was shown in schools, it gained a notoriety. The gory deaths of the children were too much for most parents. Krish refused to accept their complaints, saying that "They completely forgot the fact that it was a fantasy. But they saw it as real, they said “how dare you have teachers who are encouraging children to run in front of trains!” I mean, it was just rubbish." He continued, "They withdrew it. They banned it for 21 years and refused to allow it to be shown. And the first time it was shown publicly was at my retrospective that the BFI organized in 2003. 21 years it was banned for. Which thrilled me." (source: Fangoria)
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Charley Says... Don't Do Stupid Shit Kids! - The British public information film series from the 1970s, in which Charley the cat warned kids not to do dumb stuff.
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One Hull Of A Trip: Time-Lapse Train Journeys - You don't have to be from Hull to appreciate this. Two brilliant and unusual time-lapse railway journeys. That should be played together.
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