The Little Engine That Could (film)

Infobox Film
name = The Little Engine That Could


image_size =
caption = VHS cover, showing Tillie pulling the train
director = Dave Edwards
producer = Dave Edwards
Mike Young
writer = Ray Rhamey
narrator =
starring = Kath Soucie
Frank Welker
B.J. Ward
Neil Ross
Bever-Leigh Banfield
Peter Cullen
Scott Menville
Billy O'Sullivan
Dina Sherman
music = Mark Mueller
Ben Heneghan
Ian Lawson
cinematography =
editing = Terry Brown
distributor = MCA Home Video
released = 1991
runtime = 30 min.
country = United States, Wales
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0186311

The Little Engine that Could is a 1991 film directed by Dave Edwards and co-produced by Edwards and Mike Young, animated at Kalato Animation in Wales and co-financed by Universal Studios through their MCA Home Video arm and S4C, Wales' dedicated welsh-language channel. It was released on VHS by MCA. It was directed by Dave Edwards, and features the voice talents of Kath Soucie and Frank Welker. It is based on the book of the same name, by Watty Piper.

In Wales the film was join-released in both English and Welsh, under the title "Yr Injan Fach Fentrus" (The Adventurous Little Engine) and was broadcast on television in both languages. As a native production it was widely available on VHS in Wales and thus achieved a degree of cult status during its' time, though never touching on the level of other iconic characters such as Fireman Sam and Superted, both of which featured production staff members who worked on 'The Little Engine That Could'.

ummary

On her way to deliver a cargo of magical toys to eagerly waiting children, dedicated locomotive Georgia suddenly breaks down. Pete and Farnsworth, two big engines with important jobs, refuse to pull the train in her place. Plus rusty old Jebediah is too worn out. The little switch engine named Tillie is the only engine left, and she thinks she can do it.

Plot outline

The movie begins with the cover of the classic book "The Little Engine that Could". The book opens to a picture of a house at sunset, and then zooms inside to see Eric, a young boy, reading the book. Tomorrow is his birthday, and he is excited to hear about a birthday train full of toys. His older sister Jill teases him for believing in it (Birthday Train full of toys? I just can't beleive you really believe in that.) but he still believes that it will come.

The opening credits roll as the camera flies down from the house to the railroad, and then follows the tracks over the mountains through the night into the morning. On the other side is the railyard at the end of the line where everything in the yard is anthropomorphic. The control tower wakes up and calls out, "To work!" and the five sleeping engines in the roundhouse are introduced. There's a fancy red engine with a bonnet named Georgia, a rusty yellow engine named Jebediah, a large, coughing maroon engine named Pete, an even larger diesel engine named Farnsworth with a lustrous silver coat, and finally, there's Tillie, a little blue switcher and her bird friend, Chip. Tillie wakes up, and begins shunting the other engines while they build up steam (and in the case of the instant-start Farnsworth, seemingly because he is simply lazy).

After Farnsworth and Pete have their jobs, Tillie tries to sneak out with the milk-train in place of the rostered engine, the aged and sleeping Jebediah. The tower refuses, insisting she is too little for the job. Georgia, the only remaining engine, is assigned the birthday train, full of toys. A clown named Rollo leads the other toys into the train. Among them are a Basketball Player, a ballerina, a panda, an elephant, and a stuffed bird named 'Grumpella' (named after her attitude). Tillie watches sadly as Georgia leaves, despairing that she will never have an important train of her own.

In the middle of the journey, Georgia starts to have boiler trouble. After swinging off the main track, her smoke stack explodes and she breaks down. Eventually, the doctor engine 'Doc' comes having been alerted by smoke-signal, and decides to take her back to the roundhouse. Rollo the clown is eventually given the idea to flag down one of the other engines returning from their daily runs over the mountain. First, they see Farnsworth, the passenger engine. However, Farnsworth is very pompous, and refuses to pull them. He leaves, laughing at them through his air horn. Then Pete comes by. The tough freight engine is equally conceited, and also scoffs at the stranded toys.

Back in the yard, Tillie once again asks for a chance to go out and rescue the stranded train, to which the tower refuses like before. In the meantime, Jebediah, the old and rusty engine, passes the toys. He would love to pull them, but having already made a round-trip over the mountain during the day does not have the strength to do so again. When absolutely no engines are left, and when the tower falls asleep, Tillie sneaks off to pull the train. Having met the toys she is seen chugging and charging up the mountain determinately chanting, "I think I can, I think I can", which leads into the film's signature song "Nothing Can Stop Us Now".

Further up the mountain the weather worsens, the terrain becomes fiercer and the trains speed falls off as the grades steepen. Some animals pass Tillie, and try to put her down by saying she's too little and can't do it. To all their taunts, she responds with, "I think I can!" She reaches a dangerous old trestle that collapses underneath them. One train car falls over the cliff, but none of the living toys are lost. But then they approach a snowy cliff overhanging the rails, and an avalanche buries the train in snow. In the middle of the night, Eric, the little boy, is woken up by the thunderstorm.

We see inside Eric's book again, and see the pile of snow on top of Tillie. Her firebox appears doused, but the coals suddenly glow as she breathes in through her firebars. She awakes and finds Chip unconscious on her headlight, and nudges him awake. They hug, and Tillie decides to give it one more try. She successfully pulls the train out of the snow and down the mountain. The toys cheerfully sing along the way, and they finally reach the town. Eric sees them, and shows his sister Jill that the train "did" come after all, although in narrative terms the train arrived a day late. The film ends with Tillie blowing her whistle in joy - "Yes, I did it! And it was worth it!"

Anthropomorphizing Inanimate Objects

The anthropomorphic locomotives speak through faces on their smokeboxes (in the cases of Pete, Doc and Georgia) or smokestacks (Tillie and Jebediah). The whole of Farnsworth's streamlined frontage forms his face, with his eyes appearing in place of cab windows.

In addition, the engines can twist and flex their metal bodies to express emotion (i.e. Tillie and Jebediah spin their smokestacks round 180 degrees to look behind them) and the steam engines use their steam cylinders like limbs, giving them the ability to shrug, point and make other gestures. Doc demonstates the similarity perfectly when he somehow picks up an oversize stethoscope with his cylinder to diagnose Georgia, despite not having any fingers to hold it with.

Other means of expression include Farnsworth's air-horn, which forms his nose and which he often snorts or speaks through, and Pete's habits of coughing extreme quantities of sickly smoke and spitting hot cinders into water buckets.

The Control Tower appears as a square wooden box on metal leg-like struts with windows for eyes, a roof for a hat, semaphore signals for arms and a corncob-pipe-like klaxon for a nose, which like Farnsworth he can sound to great effect. Like the locomotives he can flex his metal and wood body and grasp objects (such as a giant clipboard and pencil) with his signal-arm limbs.

Characters

* Tillie: The small blue C. P. Huntington 4-2-2 shunter/switcher engine that wishes to do greater things. Her famously positive attitude helps her reach her dreams. Tillie's design, with her diamond-smokestack, open-backed cab and prominent single driving wheel are inspired by illustrations from editions of the original book illustrated by George and Doris Hauman.

* Chip the Bird: A tiny bird that is Tillie's companion, most often seen riding on her headlamp. He is always on Tillie's side and never lets her sadness get the best of her.

* Control Tower: The strict controller of the railroad who is very set in his beliefs and under-estimates Tillie.

* 'Georgia: An attractive Baldwin Locomotive Works 2-4-2 engine that was rostered to pull the birthday train, but broke down on her way. She is one of the nicer engines and supports Tillie in her attempts to break free of the confines of the yard. Like all the engines Georgia is of freelance design and features decorative embellishments to convey her femininity and personality.

* Farnsworth: A shining silver General Motors Electro-Motive Division EMD E1 B-B diesel-electric engine that pulls the luxurious express. He is very pompous in his ability to pull fine people smoothly and believes he is too good to pull anything besides his important coaches. His appearance seems to be inspired by classic American streamlined locomotives, such as the EMD F7 diesels and the Milwaukee Road class A steam engines.

* Pete: A maroon Atlantic Coast Line Railroad 2-4-2 freight engine with a tough guy attitude. He seems good hearted but is too proud of his freight train - he believes his important work feeding the fires of progress, commerce and industry sets him above menial tasks. Pete's mass, power and distinctive rivets make him reminiscent of the heavy freight locomotives that were once ubiquitous to America's railroads.

* Jebediah: A friendly old T. D. Judah 4-2-2 engine who has been worn down by the years and has now effectively been 'put out to pasture' on the milk-train, and who no longer has the puff to make multiple runs over the mountain. Jebediah resembles Tillie in shape, but is larger and patched up in many places from years of use.

* Rollo the Clown: An absent-minded clown who seems to lead the toys. He stutters often, but is very optimistic and caring.

* Grumpella: A cynical bird who always expects the worse.

* Perky the Baby Elephant: One of the minor characters.

* Handy Pandy: One of the minor characters.

* Stretch: A stretchy basketball doll who seems to have a crush on Missy.

* Missy: A ballerina doll with a Russian accent.

* Doc: A Reading Railroad 4-4-4 emergency engine in green livery with first-aid crosses and 'hazard' chevrons who comes to the aid of stricken trains.

* Eric: A young boy who looks forward to the birthday train's arrival, despite what his sister says.

* Jill: The older sister of Eric who no longer believes in things like birthday trains, until the end of the film.

Voice cast

* Kath Soucie - Tillie/Missy
* Frank Welker - Perky the Elephant/Eagle/Farnsworth/Jebediah/Rollo
* B.J. Ward - Grumpella
* Neil Ross - Doc/Tower/Handy Pandy
* Bever-Leigh Banfield - Georgia
* Peter Cullen - Pete
* Scott Menville - Chip the Bird/Stretch
* Billy O'Sullivan - Eric
* Dina Sherman - Jill

Japanese Cast

* Mayuko Aoki - Tillie
* Minoru Inaba - Doc/Eagle
* Machiko Soga - Chip the Bird
* Mika Doi - Missy/Jill
* Ikue Ōtani - Grumpella
* Nobuyuki Hiyama - Farnsworth/Jebediah/Stretch
* Yumiko Shibata - Georgia
* Kōichi Yamadera - Rollo/Tower
* Nanaho Katsuragi - Eric

Differences between book and film

* The narrative in the book is very linear, being told solely from the perspective of the toys.
* In the book, the child who wants to see the birthday train is not featured.
* There is not an anthropomorphic control tower in the book, or a character resembling Doc.
* The movie featured a more detailed adventure to the other side of the mountain including the deterring animals, collapsing trestle and avalanche, unlike the book which simply featured the protagonist chanting her famous line, "I think I can" over the pass.
* Tillie's narrative story embellishes Piper's original narrative with elements of the earliest Thomas the Tank Engine stories; Tillie like Thomas is cast as a shunting engine seeking to expand her horizons beyond the world of the yard she is assigned to.

Trivia

* The song that the characters sing as they climb up the mountain, and then down to the town, is titled "Nothing Can Stop Us Now", composed and written by Mark Mueller.
* The score to the film is composed by Ben Heneghan and Ian Lawson who were best known for doing the theme to another famous piece of Welsh children's television, "Fireman Sam".
* This was Kath Soucie's first voice role for a film. All her previous roles in voicing were on TV shows.
* The landscapes in the film are reminiscent of paintings by Norman Rockwell. No specific setting is given, though its worth noting that Tillie's journey from hilly woodlands westwards (she travels away from the rising sun) over severe mountains to lusher farmlands can be interpreted as a trip from New England over the Appalachian Mountains into the mid-west.
* The film was co-produced by Mike Young, the creator of classic Welsh animation character Superted. Animation for the film was done by Kalato, a studio Mike had helped set up. Mike subsequently left Wales for Los Angeles and with the aid of his wife and former "Simpsons" producer Bill Schultz established Mike Young Productions. The company is now part of the Taffy Entertainment group owned by French Animation studio Moonscoop. The group brand name seems to have been coined by Young as 'Taffy' is a Welsh slang term for a person who (like Mark) originates from Cardiff.

ee also

* The Little Engine That Could - The book on which it is based upon.

External links

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