Our take
Often called the finest of the whole strand: a two-hander of mounting dread in a fog-filled railway cutting, from Charles Dickens's story. Denholm Elliott's signalman is a man coiled to breaking point, and Bernard Lloyd's traveller is the perfect listener. Andrew Davies's script is one of his first adaptations. Unmissable for anyone who loves a ghost story told properly.
What happens
A traveller walking in a deep, gloomy railway cutting hails a signalman at the mouth of a tunnel and is invited down to his lonely signal box. The signalman, a man in a solitary job, is strangely wary of him, and slowly tells him why. A hooded figure has appeared beside the red danger light at the tunnel mouth, seeming to warn of danger, and each time disaster has followed: he is haunted by the memory of a crash, and of a bride. The bell in his box rings with no one there, and he cannot tell what the warning means or how to stop what is coming. Night after night the traveller walks back through the fog to his inn, where nightmares plague him. Andrew Davies's script reshapes Dickens's ending, linking the traveller himself to the spectre, as the warning is finally fulfilled.
Can the kids watch it?
No BBFC rating found for this film. It is dark and intense rather than gory, with a train crash in the story, so best for older children and up with a grown-up.
Cast and crew
Starring
- Denholm Elliott as The Signalman
- Bernard Lloyd as The Traveller
Writer
- Andrew Davies
Director
- Lawrence Gordon Clark