Runaway Train (film)

Runaway Train is a 1985 American independent action thriller film directed by Andrei Konchalovsky and starring Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay and John P. Ryan. The screenplay by Djordje Milicevic, Paul Zindel and Edward Bunker was based on an original screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, with uncredited contributions by frequent Kurosawa collaborators Hideo Oguni and Ryūzō Kikushima. The film was also the feature debuts of Danny Trejo and Tommy "Tiny" Lister,[3] who both proceeded to successful careers as "tough guy" character actors.

Runaway Train
Promotional poster
Directed byAndrei Konchalovsky
Produced byMenahem Golan
Yoram Globus
Screenplay byDjordje Milicevic
Paul Zindel
Edward Bunker
Story byAkira Kurosawa
Starring
Music byTrevor Jones
CinematographyAlan Hume
Edited byHenry Richardson
Production
company
Northbrook Films
Golan-Globus Productions
Distributed byThe Cannon Group, Inc.
Release date
  • December 6, 1985 (1985-12-06) (Limited)
  • January 17, 1986 (1986-01-17) (Wide)
Running time
110 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$9 million[2]
Box office$7.7 million (US)[2]

The story concerns two escaped convicts and a female railroad worker who are stuck on a runaway train as it barrels through snowy desolate Alaska. Voight and Roberts were both nominated for Academy Awards for their respective roles. It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Kurosawa intended the original screenplay to be his first color film following Red Beard, but difficulties with the American financial backers led to its being shelved.[4]

Plot

Oscar "Manny" Manheim is a ruthless bank robber and hero to the convicts of Alaska's Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison. After two previous escape attempts, Manny is put in solitary confinement for three years. A court order compels sadistic Associate Warden Ranken to release him from solitary. Planning a third break out, Manny is forced to advance his plan to mid-winter after he is stabbed. Manny recruits young prisoner Buck McGeehy to help in the complicated plan. After an arduous cross-country hike, including a swim across a freezing river, the two hop on board a train.

After the men stow away, the elderly railroad engineer has a heart attack. As the driverless train accelerates, dispatchers Dave Prince and Frank Barstow are alerted to the situation. They try to keep the tracks clear, but the runaway smashes the caboose of another train. The collision damages the cab of the lead locomotive and jams the front door of the second engine, an old EMD F-unit. The convicts are now aware something is wrong. Barstow's superior Eddie McDonald orders him to derail the train.

At this point the train's horn blows, alerting the authorities (and the two fugitives) that someone is on the train. Barstow cancels the derailment. Ranken concludes that his two escaped convicts are fleeing by rail. Meanwhile, the two fugitives are discovered by Sara, a locomotive hostler, who explains that she sounded the horn and that the train is out of control. She convinces them that jumping off the train would be suicidal and explains that the only way to stop the train would be to climb into the lead engine and press its kill switch, a near-impossible feat. As they do this, they manage to shut down the third and fourth locomotives and they nearly derail on a bridge. Someone also sees the three people and alerts the dispatch.

The dispatchers divert the runaway onto a branch after determining it is only five minutes away from a head-on collision. Further ahead the train has a tight curve near a chemical plant. Barstow agrees that they must crash it, thus condemning the three people, rather than risk a chemical explosion. Warden Ranken forces Barstow to help him reach the train by helicopter.

Manny tries to force Buck into a suicidal scramble around the outside of the second engine's frozen nose. Sara's intervention on Buck's behalf forces an armed face-off. Emotionally broken, all three slump into depression. Suddenly Ranken's accomplice is lowered from a helicopter to the lead engine but falls through the windshield of the second engine, and then under the train.

Spurred on by the appearance of his arch-enemy and resolved not to return to prison, Manny makes a perilous leap to the lead engine. He barely makes it, crushing his hand. Ranken boards the locomotive from the helicopter, but Manny ambushes and handcuffs him. Ranken orders Manny to stop the train before it crashes, but Manny has chosen to die rather than be recaptured. Ranken says that he knows how to die too. When reminded of Buck and Sara in the second engine, Manny uncouples his out-of-control lead engine. He waves goodbye, ignoring Buck's screaming pleas to shut down the lead engine, and climbs onto the roof of the lone engine in the freezing snow, his arms stretched out, ready to meet his end. Buck and Manny's fellow inmates mourn in their cells as the lone engine disappears into the storm. The film closes with an on-screen quote from William Shakespeare's Richard III:

"No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity."
"But I know none, and therefore am no beast."[5]

Cast

Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa read an article in a 1963 Life magazine by Warren Young about a runaway train. He thought it would make a good film and contacted Joseph E. Levine about doing an international co-production. In June 1966 Kurosawa announced he would make Runaway Train for Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures. The budget was to be $5.6 million. The script was written by Kurosawa, Oguni Hideo and Kikushima Ryuzo, about two escaped convicts who hide on board a stationary train, only for it to roll away, gradually picking up tremendous speed. Sidney Carroll was hired to adapt Kurosawa's script into English. The film would be shot along tracks between Syracuse and Rochester in New York over 16 weeks in October 1966. Tetus Aoyagi would produce and the film would be shot in 70 mm.[6][7]

Plans to shoot were cancelled at the last minute, only to be scheduled and cancelled yet again.[8] In April 1967 the project had been "indefinitely postponed" and Kurosawa signed to make Tora! Tora! Tora!.[9][10]

Production

Development

In 1982 the Nippon Herald company, which owned Kurosawa's script, asked Francis Ford Coppola to recommend a director. Coppola and his producer, Tom Luddy, suggested Andrei Konchalovsky. The director succeeded in raising finance from Cannon Films.

"The design is still Kurosawa's", said Andrei Konchalovsky. "The concentration of energy and passion, the existential point of view, and the image of the train as something – perhaps civilization – out of control.... Manny, the character played by Voight, feels, 'Win or lose, what's the difference?' That's not very familiar to the Western mind. We tend to love winners, and we don't like losers."[11]

Konchalovsky knew Jon Voight, who had helped get the director his visa to work in the US in 1979 (Voight wanted Konchalovsky to direct Rhinestone Heights which was ultimately never made.)[12]

Karen Allen was announced for the female lead.[13] The part ended up being played by Rebecca De Mornay, who said "It's my first real action-oriented picture. There are scenes where I'm walking across the top of a train – things like that. I really wanted to do something that called for a lot of physical acting, where I'm acting not as much with words as with my body."[14]

The Alaska Railroad decided that their name and logo would not be shown. Several scenes referred to the railroad as "A&E Northern." The filming took place near Portage Glacier, Whittier, and Grandview.

Shooting

Principal photography began on March 13, 1985, at the Butte, Anaconda, & Pacific Roundhouse in Anaconda, Montana. During filming, the crew realized they didn't have any real snow, due to warm temperatures (a false spring) in the area. They used Christmas tree flock for fake snow, and they had to keep it from melting on the tracks at the west yard. Cannon Films had to cut short its stay in Anaconda, and they moved onto Deer Lodge, Montana, to film the prison scenes at the Old Montana State Prison. Approximately 200 extras were hired to play prisoners in the scenes. They spent a week filming several scenes at the prison. Finally the second unit team went to Whittier, Alaska, to film on the Alaska Railroad tracks. The Bridge sequence was filmed on the Seneca Bridge on Placer Creek, about 5 miles (8 km) from Whittier. The scene where Jordan makes the switch on the tracks was filmed at Portage, Alaska. The cast and crew went to the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, to film the interior of the train scenes and the prisoners' escape scene. Filming was finally completed in late April 1985.[15]

The runaway train's lineup in the movie consisted of four Alaska Railroad locomotives, all built by EMD: GP40-2 #3010, F7 #1500, and #1801 and #1810, both GP7s. The latter two locomotives had previously been rebuilt by ARR with low short hoods as opposed to a GP7's original high short hood, but were fitted with mock-up high hoods made of plywood for the film, branded with fictional numbers 531 and 812, respectively. Because #1801's cab had been reconstructed prior to filming, the '531' prosthetic hood stood slightly higher than the normal hood height of a GP7 in order to fit over the locomotive's number-board.

The locomotives used in the film have gone their separate ways:

  • ARR GP40-2 #3010 is still active on the Alaska Railroad, painted in the new corporate scheme.[16]
  • ARR F7 #1500 was retired from service in 1992, and is now at the Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry Museum in Wasilla, Alaska, as can be seen on the front page of their website MuseumOfAlaska.org.[17][18]
  • ARR GP7 #1810 was sold to the Oregon Pacific Railroad and operated as OP #1810. In 2008, the unit was sold to the Cimarron Valley Railroad and is now permanently coupled to former OP Slug #1010.[19]
  • ARR GP7 #1801 was sold to a locomotive leasing company in Kansas City, Missouri, then sold to the Missouri Central Railroad and operated as MOC #1800. The locomotive subsequently appeared in another motion picture, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, in 1995. MOC became the Central Midland Railroad in 2002. As Central Midland had their own leased power, MOC 1800 was returned to Midwest Locomotive In Kansas City. Shortly after, it was then sold the Respondek Rail Corp of Granite City, Illinois, and is now used on Respondek's Port Harbor Railroad subsidiary. The unit's identification is RRC #1800. As of 2015, the locomotive has been stored, out of service, needing wheel work. A return to service on the Port Harbor Railroad is unlikely, as there is talk about sending the unit to another Respondek Operation.[20]
  • The train that was hit by the runaway was led by MRS-1 #1605. This unit had been retired in 1984, one year before filming started. The unit has since been cut up for scrap.
  • Sequences set at the rail yard, shot on the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway in Anaconda, Montana, used local locomotives from the BA&P fleet along with former Northern Pacific EMD F9 #7012A, leased from the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad. The two GP7s and the F9 were fitted with plywood boxes to duplicate the distinctive 'winterization hatches' carried on their Alaskan counterparts.
  • BA&P EMD GP38-2 #109, the BA&P locomotive used in the yard scenes as the lead-engine in place of ARR #3010, was subsequently sold to the Alaska Railroad and remains in service there as #2002, along with sister unit #2001 (ex-BA&P #108).

Richard (Rick) Holley was killed prior to start of principal photography when the helicopter he was piloting hit power lines while scouting for shoot locations in Alaska. The film is dedicated to him during the closing credits.

Music

USSR Academic Russian Chorus is credited for Antonio Vivaldi's "Gloria".

Release

Box office

Runaway Train had its premiere in New York City on November 15, 1985, followed by its limited release in 965 theatres on December 6, 1985. It made $2,601,480 on that weekend. It was released nationwide on January 17, 1986 and was well received by critics, but failed to find an audience. It opened in 8th place its premiere weekend, and failed to make back its production cost. The film also had a premiere in Anaconda, Montana at the Washoe Theater on March 20, 1986. Invitations for the premiere were sent to people from the department of Commerce, Rarus Railroad and Cannon Films personnel, as well as Jon Voight, Eric Roberts and Rebecca De Mornay. However, none of the actors could attend. The film made $7,936,012 worldwide.

Critical reception

Runaway Train received generally positive reviews, and has an 85% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 34 reviews, and an average rating of 7.34/10.The website's critical consensus states, "Charging forward with the momentum of a locomotive, Runaway Train makes great use of its adrenaline-fueled premise and star presences of Jon Voight and Eric Roberts".[21] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[22] Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times, felt that much of the film was absurd but that Jon Voight's performance was excellent, and she credits the film for "crude energy and bravado".[23] In 2010, movie critic Michael Phillips said on his show At the Movies that it was the most under-rated movie of the 1980s. Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars.[24]

In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films.[25] Runaway Train was listed at 64th place on this list.[26]

Accolades

The film was entered into the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.[27]

Award Category Nominee Result
Academy Awards Best Actor Jon Voight Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Eric Roberts Nominated
Best Film Editing Henry Richardson Nominated
ACE Eddie Best Edited Feature Film Nominated
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Andrei Konchalovsky Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Drama Menahem Golan Nominated
Yoram Globus Nominated
Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama Jon Voight Won
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Eric Roberts Nominated
Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – Foreign Feature Won
Stuntman Awards Best Vehicular Stunt (Feature Film) Terry Jackson Nominated

See also

References
  1. "RUNAWAY TRAIN (18)". British Board of Film Classification. January 16, 1986. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
  2. Andrew Yule, Hollywood a Go-Go: The True Story of the Cannon Film Empire, Sphere Books, 1987 p 189
  3. Boone, Keyaira (December 11, 2020). "Tommy 'Tiny' Lister Jr. Dead At 62". Essence. Lister’s appeance as Deebo in “Friday” and “Next Friday” had a lasting effect on black film cannon.
  4. Kurosawa, Akira (2009). Dodes'Ka-den (Akira Kurosawa: It's wonderful to create – Kurosawa Uses Color) (DVD). The Criterion Collection.
  5. In the play the first line is spoken by the character Lady Anne, the second by the Duke of Gloucester (later to become King Richard III).
  6. Martin, Betty (July 1, 1966). "Train on a 'Foreign' Track". Los Angeles Times. p. d11.
  7. Howard Thompson (July 1, 1966). "Kurosawa to Make Film Here Jointly With Embassy Pictures". The New York Times. p. 42.
  8. "TV Producer Says Sophia Loren Going to Have Baby". The Washington Post, Times Herald. December 14, 1966. p. C12.
  9. Gaibraith, Stuart, IV. "MISADVENTURES IN HOLLYWOOD". Sight and Sound. 20 (7 (July 2010)). London. pp. 40–41, 2.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. "Kurosawa Signed to Direct Part of Pearl Harbor Film". New York Times. April 28, 1967. p. 31.
  11. ALJEAN HARMETZ (November 30, 1985). "Russian director gets Runaway Train on the rails". The Globe and Mail. p. D.6.
  12. Rosenfield, Paul (May 26, 1985). "KONCHALAVSKY BREAKS THE CINEMA CURTAIN". Los Angeles Times (Home ed.). p. 18.
  13. "The State: [Home Edition]". Los Angeles Times. March 11, 1985. p. 2.
  14. Ryman, Rick (April 4, 1985). "TOUGH AND SEXY? NOT HER NEW ROLE". Philadelphia Inquirer. p. C.5.
  15. "Runaway Train". www.AlaskaRails.org. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  16. "RailPictures.Net Photo: ARR 3010 Alaska Railroad EMD GP40-2 at Whittier, Alaska by Nick Ozorak". www.RailPictures.net. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  17. "Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry". Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  18. "RailPictures.Net Photo: ARR 1500 Alaska Railroad EMD F7(A) at Wasilla, Alaska by Dave Blaze..." www.RailPictures.net. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  19. "OPR 1810 & 1010 in new SFGX paint". www.RRPictureArchives.net. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  20. "RailPictures.Net Photo: RCC 1800 Respondek Railroad Corp. EMD GP7 at Granite City, Illinois by Craig Walker". www.RailPictures.net. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  21. "Runaway Train". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
  22. https://www.metacritic.com/movie/runaway-train
  23. Janet Maslin (December 6, 1985). "Film: Runaway Train from Konchalovsky". The New York Times. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
  24. YouTube (video). Retrieved September 21, 2017 – via YouTube.com.
  25. "The 100 best action movies". Time Out. Retrieved November 7, 2014.
  26. "The 100 best action movies: 70-61". Time Out. November 3, 2014. Retrieved November 7, 2014.
  27. "Festival de Cannes: Runaway Train". Festival-Cannes.com. Retrieved July 11, 2009.
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