Nine, Dalmuir West (1962) User Reviews

It's Kevin Brownlow, so I think I owe it to him to watch it!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 31 January 2011]

Kevin Brownlow is responsible for some of the best, if not the best, documentaries about silent film stars. And, since I adore silents, then he is indeed someone I admire. His "Unknown Chaplin" is brilliant and features tons of never before seen and very obscure film clips detailing the process through which this silent genius constructed his films. "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow" is every bit as good and did a lot to make me adore Keaton's work. And, his documentary on D.W. Griffith is also a delight. So, I feel almost as if I owe it to the man to see everything I can--he's given me many wonderful hours of entertainment and great insights. I just wish more of his work was available now on DVD (like his Keaton and Cinema Europe series are either out of print or only available on video--and at ENORMOUS price)! So, even odd and obscure things I am more than willing to watch if I can find them. And, odd and obscure is exactly what you'd probably consider "Nine, Dalmuir West"--his first film and one that probably would be forgotten had Brownlow not gone on to greater things. But I appreciate it because it was excellent training.

"Nine, Dalmuir West" is a sentimental black & white documentary (perhaps filmed with 8mm film stock) about the closing of a tram line in Glasgow. While this is hardly a momentous occasion, it was to the workers and their families and Brownlow manages to make this seemingly mundane idea come to life. For the time period in which it was made and his inexperience, it was a nice little film--if a tad rough.

By the way, I assume Mr. Brownlow does not sign in to IMDb to read reviews of his films, but if he does, some other great topics for future documentaries (and DON'T tell me you are retired) would be Harry Langdon (are all the stories about his self-destructiveness and egomania even true?!), Charley Bowers (I REALLY want to know more about him), Georges Méliès as well as Clara Bow would all be interesting topics for a silent film documentary (provided there is enough material still available).

The Changing Face of Nostalgia

[JamesHitchcock · 19 December 2023]

Electric tramways were a common form of urban public transport during the early part of the twentieth century, but from about 1930 onwards many towns and cities began phasing them out. There were two main reasons for this. The first was that the increase in private cars meant that trams were more likely to impede the free flow of traffic. The second was the expansion during the thirties of towns and cities into new suburbs; it was easier and cheaper to provide buses to service these new developments than to spend money on extending existing tramways. Trams were given a new lease of life by the outbreak of war in 1939 because electricity could be provided from coal mined in Britain whereas wartime conditions meant that it was difficult, dangerous and expensive to import the oil needed to produce diesel fuel. After the war, however, more tramway systems were closed down, including London's in 1952. A few cities, notably Sheffield and Glasgow, seemed to be holding out, but Sheffield's last tram ran in 1960 and Glasgow's in 1962. This left Blackpool as the only city in mainland Britain still operating a municipal tramway, and even here the system was retained more as a tourist attraction than as a practical transport option.

Kevin Brownlow's film follows the journey of Glasgow's last tram, number nine to Dalmuir West, on 4th September 1962. The tone of the commentary is one of nostalgia, pointing out that trams had their own culture, different from that of the bus service; for example, Glasgow allowed women to drive trams but not buses. (The reason, not explained in the film, was that driving buses required greater physical strength). Tram drivers even wore their peaked caps at a different angle from bus drivers. The film, however, leaves us in no doubt that trams were an institution that had had their day and that the future belonged to the petrol and diesel engines. The soundtrack features the instrumental hit "Telstar" by The Tornadoes, named after a communications satellite, and the point is explicitly made in the commentary; how could yesterday's invention, the tram, co-exist with something as futuristic as the Telstar?

Sixty years on, however, "Nine, Dalmuir West" is one of those documentaries which purports to be looking backwards but which tells us as much about the age in which it was made. To a modern audience it conjures up as much nostalgia for the sixties as it does for the Golden Age of the Tram earlier in the century. Tramways began to make a comeback in Britain in the nineties, with cities such as Manchester, Nottingham and Croydon- although not yet Glasgow- beginning to reintroduce them. Trams, therefore, no longer automatically strike us as outdated, but the vehicles we see in the film now look just as antiquated as the trams once did, if not more so. And as for "Telstar", that is one of those hits which have become a sort of aural shorthand for a long-vanished age.