Warm Nights On A Slow Moving Train (1988) Aussie Railway Noir - Christmas Noir

"She's a railroad lady
Just a little bit shady
Spending her days on a train
She's the semi good looker
But the fast rails they took her
Now she's trying just trying
To get home again"(Willie Nelson)

Directed by Bob Ellis and also written by him along with Patric Juillet, and Denny Lawrence. The interesting cinematography was by Yuri Sokol, music was by Peter Sullivan. The film was shot around Goulburn, and Sydney in New South Wales, and in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It reminded me a lot of The Narrow Margin.

The film stars Wendy Hughes (My Brilliant Career (1979)) as Jenny Nicholson aka. The Girl, Colin Friels (Dark City (1998) as The Man, Norman Kaye as The Salesman, John Clayton as The Football Coach, Rod Zuanic as The Young Soldier, Lewis Fitz-Gerald as Jenny's brother Brian, Peter Whitford as The Steward.

The tale of a "railroad lady" a woman who, on the weekends, moonlights as a professional prostitute. She trolls the lounge car and spreads her legs for lonely men on the overnight train, the Sydney/Melbourne/Sydney Express. Called the "Sex" or "Mex express. It's a seventeen car train and a twelve hour journey in each direction.

Jenny (Wendy Hughes)

During the week she's a demure Catholic girls school art teacher. She is justifying her seedy second occupation by using the jack to buy her paraplegic junkie brother the morphine he needs for his habit. He is sort of a latent de facto pimp.

All her encounters are juxtaposed with haunting shots of the train stabbing through the lonely darkness. A metaphor for lost souls searching the dark eternity for fleeting moments of intimacy.

Lounge Car

The Coach (John Clayton)

She enters the lounge car like a shark looking for tricks she knows how to scope out the troubled  lonely ones, and how to maneuver in close, and how to make them desire her.

Jenny's a good listener, and instinctively knows what to say to encourage and comfort. Before she was a teacher she was for a brief period a nurse and that experience informs her almost therapeutic effect on her johns.

She has the Judy Garland Suite reserved for her assignations. Chameleon like she changes her looks  with different clothes, various wigs, and makeup, and accessories.

"I do this for money"

First customer is a famous football coach. He writes a newspaper column, but he has just gotten fired. He has some low self esteem and a persecution complex. They chat in the lounge until Jenny suggests that they go to her suite. The coach agrees eagerly. In the dark corridor she stops and matter of fact-ly whispers that this is going to cost him. She charges him $250, they do the horizontal mamba, and when his time is up she drops the friendly facade and kicks him out. The next morning in the dining car she ignores him and his attempts to make conversation. It was just business.

On the return trip she has a different look, that of a much younger woman. A real flirtatious cutie. She picks up a young soldier. He's smitten with her, wants to marry her. When he tries to stay past her 3AM cut off time she demands that he leave. He does, but after some difficulty. He again tries to talk with her at breakfast, and to accost her on the platform. She calls the authorities.

prowling

Jenny and  soldier (Rod Zuanic)

"It's gonna cost you"

Another weekend. Her next client is a retired salesman. She is a redhead on this rail trip. He comes on to her when he approaches her in the club car.

"I usually do."

Salesman: Are you going all the way?
Jenny: I usually do.

"Two hundred dollars."

The Salesman (Norman Kaye ) and Jenny

She charges the salesman $200 listens to his problems and gives him a roll.

On her next tip there is a Christmas Party and her client that night is a preacher. Throughout all these encounters we have seen in short glimpses a handsome man giving Jenny the eye, watching her in sort of peek-a-boo sequences.  After the second incident we get the first impression that he may be a railroad detective or some other type of cop. She appears to break with her usual cold professionalism, and seems excited by his attentions. Jenny is inside a woman with needs after all. Jenny begins to look for him.

The Man

A fleeting glance

The Man (Colin Friels)

waiting for Jenny

One night he's waiting for her outside the Judy Garland suite. They make love as lovers. Jenny gives in to temptation, lets herself go and finds herself falling in love with him.

They meet again on the return trip and repeat their lovemaking. Jenny tells him about her brother and why she is doing what she is doing. However when the train gets to the terminal and they go their separate ways, Jenny watches as the man is met by a woman in a Mercedes. He drives off with her, Jenny is jealous.

The man and a woman

Jealous Jenny

Jenny's back on routine by the next weekend.

Her next client is a musician. It's the same M.O. chat them up, tell 'em it's going to cost 'em, screw, and then out.

The Singer (Steve J. Spears)

Here, after his session, we find out the reason she cuts everyone off at three o'clock. The head steward (Peter Whitford) shows up at 3:00 to check on her and to get his cut of the action. He most probably spreads it around to the rest of the lounge crew to keep things running smoothly. The steward also sleeps in the pull down top bunk in the Judy Garland Suite along with Jenny. We find out he's gay and that even he uses Jenny as a confessor. He tells his latest love problems with his partner to Jenny.

The  Steward (Peter Whitford) getting his cut

Another weekend. Jenny in the lounge car her gaze wanders looking more for the handsome stranger, rather than for tricks. She spots him.

We need to talk

We need to kill him he's a womanizer a corrupt polluter and his political movement is a threat to the planet's environment

He tells her they need to talk. She meets with him back at the suite. Though this time he acts differently. Business like, he makes her a proposition, $50, 000 down and $800,000  afterward to kill a politician. She gets him in the sack, uses an instantaneous poison concealed in a fake fingernail. It will look like a heart attack. They will take compromising pictures "in flagrante delicto," and ruin his political machine.

She'll be set for life, her bother would be taken care of 24/7. He tells her also that she can see him as much as she wants. When she hesitates he tells her that the politician will be killed anyway and she'll be booked for prostitution and drug charges.

Will she do it?

Noirsville

Steward (Peter Whitford)

Jenny the teacher

Brian Jenny's brother, (Lewis Fitz-Gerald)

Jenny and The Politician (Grant Tilly)

The film is well acted. All the characters are believable. The little vignettes are telling and introspective.

However........

The film was greatly shortened by producer Ross Dimsey.  According to the director Ellis:

"It was one of the best scripts I've ever written. We made the grave error of agreeing to let Dimsey produce it and then the worse error of moving the whole thing to Melbourne. So I was away from home. And there was this whole 10 BA set-up with shifty lawyers who, I didn't know, had kind of agreed to fire me at a certain point if I fulfilled certain expectations. Which I didn't. But I got fired quite late in the day and then 64 laughs, by my count, were removed. It wasn't meant to be funny, but it was a viable experience. I had Yuri Sokol shooting it. He's a wonderful cameraman but he's an awful bastard and he would sometimes light with candles... It was a nasty experience, as nasty as I've experienced. So it really ditched me as a director. Because it would have been - had my cut, which fortunately several people like Al Finney and Bob Weiss saw and said it would have been the best Australian film - had my cut survived and been shown (but it was burnt with our house), I would have then had a directing career not unlike that of, say, Simon Wincer where I would have had some credibility overseas and so on." (from Wiki)


I've also read that in the directors cut an attempt was made to have each of Jenny's john's represent a different type of Australian man. Don't know how many were cut out. The film is quite good in this cut, one wonders how much better it could have been. 7-8/10