Hellbound Train

I saw the Library of Congress reconstruction, which was pieced together from fragments of three different prints. Silent, with a soundtrack by Samuel Waymon.

Produced for private showings at churches and other meetings. The Devil is shown as the engineer of a train heading to hell, as well as dancing around when he gets new recruits for hell. Different cars on the train are reserved for sinners of various types, such as thieves, drunkards, people who deceive their spouses, and cheats. There are various scenes illustrating these sinners in action.

Mainly interesting as illustrations of life of the time, such as costumes, interiors, cars and dances - the sins seem have remained the same.

Recently, the Criterion Channel (available with a Roku, Amazon Fire or no most gaming systems) posted a bunch of early black cinema films...including three by the Eloyce Gist and James Gist. The Gist's three films were designed to be shown in churches and revival meetings and have a very strong moralistic message to them. In "Hellbound Train", it's all about the evils of jazz music and dancing. And, like most films of the genre, its production values and acting are pretty pathetic when seen today.

The film begins with a guy dressed up in a devil costume climbing aboard a train and driving it off. Soon you see lots of folks cavorting about in a dance joint...and soon you see the demon jumping about because he's so happy that these folks are ruining their souls. Next, this devil is out to enjoy watching a man ruin himself and his family through drink. And then...the worst of all...you see folks listening to Jazz!! In fact, one lady dances while enjoying jazz and she nearly dies until some do-gooders play a hymn to bring her back from the brink of death....or not. There's more...but I think you get the gist of it (get it,...'gist'??).

Subtle this movie is NOT and when seen today, it seems pretty silly....though perhaps not back in the 1930s. The acting is way over the top, the inclusion of the happy demon reveling as folks destroy themselves unintentionally funny and the whole thing seems very dated...even for 1930. After all, the Gist's films of the 1930s were all silent...long after everyone else in America had switched to sound.

Hellbound Train (1930)

* (out of 4)

James and Eloyce Gist were not only husband and wife but they were a traveling ministry who would turn black churches and show this picture. It was somewhat of a roadshow event as things would start off with a preacher and then we'd get to this film, which would be shown while Eloyce played piano for its music score. There really wasn't too much known about this film until here recently when a print turned up (along with Gist's two other films) but it's certainly a rather crazy picture.

Basically this is a warning picture against anyone who might be wanting or willing to sin. We learn that there's a large black train that takes people to Hell and sure enough it's the Devil himself driving. From here we see a group of people getting on the train where there are such evil's as dancing, drink and of course sex, which leads to either babies or abortions. Throughout the 48-minute running time we see countless sins that will get you a ticket on the train to Hell.

HELLBOUND TRAIN is a really, really awful movie. Let's just get that out of the way. It's clear that the Gist's didn't know how to make a movie and more than likely this here was just a way to help them get around in their ministry. The film is really, really bad. I mean really bad on all levels. The storytelling is among the worst I've ever seen and it's clear that no one knew what they were doing. However, the level of badness is what makes the film worth watching because it really does belong on the same screen as stuff like MANIAC and REEFER MADNESS.

Had this film been released or better known then I'm sure it would have a big cult following and now that it has finally been released I can only guess that it's reputation will eventually grow. As a race film it's pretty awful. As a religious film it's quite laughable at times and especially with some of the "sins" that are warned about. The great thing about bad movies is that the filmmakers usually had true intent on creating something great. There's no question that this movie was meant to scare sinners into finding God but man what a stinker this thing was.

If this is print is the cornerstone for "meticulous restoration," I'd hate to see what not so meticulous restoration looks like.

This print is horrible.

Withour spoliers, the movie begins with a guy in a rubber mask who looks more like the original Batman than Satan handing out flyers that say something to the effect of "One way Ticket" No coming back. All you have to do is give me your soul."

And somehowm he gets quite a number of takers. One guy says "let's give it a try!"

The train takes off an then the moral play begins in short chapters of what's immoral - dance, drink, you get the idea. Only none of these sinners are on the train! They are all in some house.

The film has a 1930 copyright -- well into the sound era, but it's silent with a pianotrack. Not sure if this is the original track or not.

So all kinds of bad things happen while the devil rejoices. Over and over.

It's a marginally interesting period piece that grows tedious after about 10 of the 50 minutes. To be truthful, I fast forwarded quite a bit because it was just too repetitcious.

But that train keeps a-rolling.

To write about this as if it is a movie is a grave mistake. Produced at a time when many revival shows were still using magic lanterns, thinking of it as a movie produces a list of of its flaws. Its antiquated use of animated text, its poor camerawork, its ridiculous devil in a cloth costume repeatedly hopping up and down, rejoicing, the frequent cuts to hurtling trains as its sole Academician-style metaphor, make my agnostic 21st-Century brain go "Yeah, you've said this six times."

Of course, I am not the intended audience for this. I have no sense of faith, no belief in its primitive, dance-hating sense of morality. I believe in neither Heaven nor Hell, so it seems simply mean-spirited and bizarre to me, lumping gamblers with murderers, drunkards with cheaters, and so forth.

What is clear is that the audience for this .... well, let's call it a movie anyway, for want of a better word.... the audience for this movie is the sort of Christian revival meeting that once took place quite often in this nation. If we take the attitudes of the people who made this as typical, there is no hope of Heaven in this movie, just fear of Hell; no right way of living, just an endless list of wrong ways; no G*d of Love, just one looking to hand you over to the Devil to be tortured endlessly, once you slip and get on that Hellbound Train.