“Ghost Train”
Original airdate September 29, 1985
Teleplay by Frank Dees
Story by Steven Spielberg
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Shrouded in the trademark Spielberg secrecy of the time, “Ghost
Train” was the lead off hitter in the “Amazing Stories” lineup. The hype
throughout the summer of ’85 had been omnipresent and the soaring expectations
for the series were beyond ridiculous.
To add to the already tense atmosphere, Spielberg did not
provide any advanced tapes or review screenings for critics. For Spielberg,
this was a way to avoid spoilers and was similar to the way he handled his
movies. But for television this was unheard of at the time. TV critics took
this as a slap in the face.
They were already pissed about Spielberg’s two year guaranteed
contract with NBC. They were pissed off about the secrecy surrounding the show.
They were pissed off “E.T.” made so much money. And now they were really pissed
this guy had the gall to shake up the system. “Who does he think he is?” was
the prevailing attitude.
Finally, “Ghost Train” premiered and the next day critics
went berserk. The show was savaged with some of the most over the top vitriolic
reviews imaginable. Viewers and genre fans were not much kinder. The next month’s
Starlog Magazine letters section was
packed with reader’s expressing their disappointment in the series and “Ghost
Train” in particular. Even my favorite genre analyst of all time, the astute John
Kenneth Muir wrote in Terror Television that “Amazing Stories” was one of the greatest disasters in the history of
television (I’m paraphrasing).
“Ghost Train” is the story about an old-timer named Opa
Globe (played by Roberts Blossom) who is waiting for a train called the
Highball Express to return and take him to his destiny—a train that he thinks
he caused to crash seventy-five years earlier.
The episode focuses on the special bond Opa has with his grandson
Brian (played by Lukas Haas, one of the best child actors at the time and fresh
off of co-starring with Harrison Ford in “Witness”). Unlike Brian’s parents, he gets his
grandfather. He listens intently when Opa tells the story about the Highball Express
and what is about to happen—and he believes.
In a Spielberg story only children or—people with a
childlike sense of wonder such as Opa—have a true sense of the transcendent—the
world beyond—the fantastic. Regular adults (such as Brian’s parents) going
about their mundane lives of stressful banality are far too distracted and
cynical to see what is going on around them, until it (in this case literally)
comes crashing down into their lives.
Spielberg is a true visual storyteller. He tells his story
in a series of artfully composed images that seamlessly take us from point A to
point B. There is usually not a whole lot of intricate or complex plot or a
great deal of verb-age. Back in 1985, this was highly unusual for television
which at that time was a very static medium visually. TV in 1985 was dialogue
heavy, plot driven and full of talking heads—very un-cinematic. And here comes this visually oriented director telling
a this little thirty minute story with a series of sweeping pans, push-ins, and
tracking shots, cut to the soaring themes of John Williams.
It was something audiences had never seen in a television series
and were not very receptive to it.
Much of the problem here is the length as well as the
format. In a two hour film in a darkened theater the director has time and
space to tell his story through the visuals and allow the audience to immerse
themselves into the movie as Spielberg skillfully leads them on a physical and
emotional journey. “Ghost Train” does not and cannot work the same way as a
Spielberg film because he simply does not have enough time to work his magic
and bring us come to the emotional catharsis we so desperately require.
The director’s segment in “The Twilight Zone Movie” suffered
in a similar way and “Ghost Train” has the added burden of playing on a (at the
time) tiny screen amid a household full of distractions, not to mention having
to break for toilet paper commercials every ten minutes.
And make no mistake, “Ghost Train” plays more like big
budget experimental short film than it does a television drama.
Technically, it is beyond reproach. As noted above, the John
Williams music is superb, very much in line with the emotionally potent
material he was creating at the time. And if you do seek this show out, see it
on DVD or at least streaming at Netflix (and not the illegal grainy pixelated
copies uploaded at YouTube) because “Ghost Train” looks fantastic. It was shot
by my favorite Spielberg cinematographer Allen Daviau, who also lensed “E.T.”, “The
Color Purple”, and “Empire of the Sun”.
So the plot is somewhat bare-bones, the visuals and music and
direction superb, but what is “Ghost Train” really about?
Much like “Poltergeist”, it is about the sins of the past.
It is about the falsehood of “American Exceptional-ism”, this notion that United
States has always been this virtuous beacon of justice and our past a romanticized
utopia where everyone was happy and prosperous and spiritually fulfilled. The “Ghost
Train” in this episode is not so much about Opa, who merely seems to be
hitching a ride into the afterlife.
It is really about those other passengers on the Highball
Express, who were heading out west to take over the lands of the Native
Americans. Native Americans who were either herded into concentration camps, or
outright slaughtered, by the United States Army. The people on that train are
prisoners—destined to roam forever over the blood-soaked lands they sought to
grow fat and rich off of after the United States government had taken care of
the only thing that stood in their way—that pesky “Indian Problem”.
The above reading is not such a reach when you consider that
Spielberg would go on to make a film about another genocide called “Schindler’s
List”.
Bottom line: *** out of four.
Beautifully shot, staged, and scored, “Ghost Train” is
interesting, but is just not Spielberg at full steam.
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