Night Mail
| Night Mail | |
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The film "starred" Parallel-boilered Royal Scot no 6115 Scots Guardsman.
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| Directed by |
Harry Watt Basil Wright |
| Produced by | Harry Watt Basil Wright |
| Written by | W. H. Auden |
| Narrated by | John Grierson |
| Music by | Benjamin Britten |
| Edited by | Basil Wright |
| Distributed by | Associated British Film Distributors |
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Release date
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Running time
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24 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Night Mail is a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film Unit. The film ends with a "verse commentary" by W. H. Auden, written for existing footage. Benjamin Britten scored the film. The film was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and narrated by John Grierson and Stuart Legg. The Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti was sound director. The locomotive featured in the film was Royal Scot 6115 Scots Guardsman, built in 1927. The film has become a classic of its own kind, much imitated by adverts and modern film shorts. Night Mail is widely considered a masterpiece of the British Documentary Film Movement.
The film documents the way the post was distributed by train in the 1930s, focussing on the so-called Postal Special train, a train dedicated only to carrying the post and with no members of the public, travelling on the mainline route from Euston station, London to Glasgow, Scotland and on to Edinburgh and then Aberdeen. External shots include many of the train itself passing at speed down the tracks, some interesting aerial views, with interior shots of the sorting van (actually shot in studio).
As recited in the film, the poem's rhythm imitates the train's wheels as they clatter over track sections, beginning slowly but picking up speed so that by the time of the penultimate verse the narrator is at a breathless pace. As the train slows toward its destination the final verse is more sedate. The opening lines are "This is the Night Mail crossing the border / Bringing the cheque and the postal order". The copyright on the film expired after 50 years, but some sources assert that the W.H. Auden poem remains protected by copyright as a written piece. The musical score was first published in 2002. Britten's score imagined the real sounds of the train and incorporated these imaginary sounds into his score. At over fifteen minutes, it is one of Britten's most elaborate film scores.
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