​On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is actor Sterling K. Brown.  His conversation with host Peter Sagal is entertaining and lively, and they cover the difficulty of promoting the series he stars in, “Paradise,” since he can’t really talk about what the show is really about; discussing the podcast he does with his wife – and an early job interning at the Federal Reserve Bank.
 
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:30 mark.

There’s a wonderful reason for all this, bear with me.
 
I’ve long been a big admirer of George Plimpton, who was the erudite editor of the Paris Review and a serious writer – a compatriot of Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer and many others, but was most-known for his participatory journalism, and the books that resulted from that.  His most famous book, Paper Lion, dealt with his time at training camp with the Detroit Lions, practicing with the NFL team as quarterback, all of which led to him getting a chance to run four plays during an exhibition intersquad game – which was a total, disastrous flop.  If you consider losing 35 yards a total, disastrous flop.
 
(The book was made into a pretty good movie that starred Alan Alda as Plimpton, a very respectable look-alike.  My only quibble with the otherwise terrific film is that for his four plays, the movie – to be more comically dramatic – far over-exaggerates his failure, having him backpedal into the goalpost.)
 
But he did much more than just football.  I have five of his books, including his first Out of My League (that began life as an article for Sports Illustrated magazine) when he pitched to the American League and National League all-star baseball teams.  But also Open Net, for which he played goalie for the NHL’s Boston Bruins, and a book on his brief experience trying the PGA golf tour, Bogey Man.  Among his many other efforts, which lead to articles, were playing basketball with the Boston Celtics, auto-racing, boxing light-heavyweight champ Archie Moore for three rounds, and (in a much safer, though still personally harrowing exploit) playing percussion in two concerts with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Berstein.
 
Though he was, of course, at the center of all his books and articles, what made his work so wonderful is that they weren’t really about him – those tales added a fun, dramatic structure to the stories – but rather dealt into the people around him who he was “competing” with and what their lives were like as real people with egos and insecurities trying to make a career in those fields, insight into what training and practicing was really like.
 
A few years back, there was a terrific documentary about him, called, Plimpton!  Starring George Plimpton as Himself.  I wrote about it here.  What made the documentary so wonderful was that, unlike most similar movies, is that there is so much film footage of him in action.  And much of that is thanks to a series of, I believe, six TV documentaries produced by David Wolper for ABC in the early 1970s.  There was Plimpton!  The Man on the Flying Trapeze – in which he trained with the circus to perform on – yes, really – the flying trapeze.  As well as Plimpton!  Did You Hear the One About…? where did trained to be a stand-up comic in Las Vegas, as opening act for Paul Anka.  (There’s the hilarious advice I’ve always remembered Jonathan Winters giving him, telling Plimpton to peek around the curtain before coming on stage and, in a high-pitched childlike voice say, “Hi!  We’re going to have some fun!”)  And one – Plimpton!  Shoot-Out at Rio Lobo -- where he went behind-the-scenes about making movies and got a one-line role in a John Wayne movie, Rio Lobo.  (The big joke in that one is that he spends the whole film practicing his one line, “I got your warrant right here, sheriff,” pulling out a rifle – and right before filming the scene, the director Howard Hawks, changed the line, to “This here’s your warrant, mister”.  After which he’s beaten up and then shot by Wayne.)  But my very favorite of those TV films was one where Plimpton himself (rather than the Hollywood movie, good as it was) sort of re-created his famous Paper Lion experience.  Not with Detroit, but with then-Baltimore Colts. They called it Plimpton!  The Great Quarterback Sneak.
 
Here's the trailer of the documentary, which is a nice set-up for the point of all this, which is coming.

​From the archives.  This week's contestant is Mitchell Shapiro from Fort Lee, New Jersey.  And sorry, you’re on your own on this one.  There were a couple points where I could hear a theme that had a touch of familiarity, but I couldn’t go any further.  However, even host Fred Child couldn’t get the song, so I know I’m in good company.  And the thing is…it’s a massively popular song, one I dearly love.  But man, is it well-hidden.  Though once you know, and pianist Bruce Adolphe pays it again, you can hear it all.  Moreover, the composer style was one of my favorite composers, though not for this type of music. (At one point, almost laughingly, I wondered if it was that composer, since in the past I’ve made the same mistake.)  So, I couldn't get that, either.

Although for years the celebration moved around the calendar a bit more than in the past and was therefore somewhat difficult to track down (no pun intended), today -- we are full of joy to announce -- once again is that most grand fest, National Train Day.  At least it is here at Elisberg Industries, and that's good enough as a starting point.  You won't find it on any calendars for any number of reasons, but the most important is that since Amtrak funding got cut back they stopped promoting it after 2016.

(And the reason for it moving around the calendar is that it was never a set day, but the Saturday closest to May 10.  Why May 10, I hear you cry?  Because that's the anniversary of the Golden Spike being driven in at Promontory Point, Utah, to complete the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.)

But whether or not it remains an officially promoted holiday by the government -- and isn't being celebrated here on a proper Saturday due to prior commitments, think of it as the train running behind schedule -- National Train Day (or as it used to be known around these parts once upon a time as "Let's Make Chris Dunn's Head Explode Day," but no more since he now, at long last, acknowledges Bridge on the River Kwai as a train movie) is nonetheless still one of the most joyous holidays of the year. ​

​For our part here, we celebrate National Train Day on these pages by posting a list of the greatest train movies.  These are films in which trains are absolutely central to the story.  Where a train is the driving force of the tale, without which you can’t properly describe the plot.

(Think of it like the classic and beloved Santa Claus song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."  Santa Claus doesn't actually appear in the song at all.  He hasn't even shown up yet.  In most ways, it's about "you" and what you should do -- or better not do.  But even though there's not a hint of Santa Claus even appearing in the song, without Santa Claus...there's no song.)

We're strict about this.  A friend once recommended The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3, and it was strongly considered, but that was a subway train or light rail.  This list is for full-bore trains, the kind that either have sleeping cars and dining cars, or could if they were hitched on.  But I've added it to our Honorable Mentions category.  And strict, too, is that the list is for feature films only.  Yes, I could have included TV movies and series, but I don't.  It's just where I chose to draw the line.  But that's why I created the Special Mentions category.

Since the list is fluid, we keep adding to it. And so we have an addition this year.  It's Terror on a Train from 1953, with Glenn Ford as an army bomb disposal expert.  No, it's not close to being one of the all-time greats, but it's fun.

As I noted, there are two other categories added a few years back:  Honorable Mention is for movies which you can generally tell their stories without using the word "train," but they have some connection to trains -- usually a great, standout train sequence, supportive to the story, but not essential in telling the plot -- that makes them memorable.  And later, I added a category of Special Mention, for works that don't qualify as a train movie or perhaps even as a movie at all, but deserve a place of honor. 

This year, I've included two new Honorable Mentions -- The first is Some Like It Hot.  It's not remotely a train movie, but has one of the more famous train scenes in a movie comedy.  And second, we have Berlin Express, made in 1948, a story of post-World War II German subversives. Though the title suggests this is a pure train movie, most of it takes place off the train in the city.

And as I noted in the past, though something I think is likely very obvious, I love train movies.  Here is the current list of Great Train Movies.

3:10 to Yuma
Around the World in 80 Days
Back to the Future 3
Bridge on the River Kwai
Bullet Train
The Commuter
The Darjeeling Limited
Emperor of the North
The 5:17 to Paris
The General
The Girl on the Train
The Great Locomotive Chase
The Great Train Robbery
The Lady Vanishes
Murder in the Private Car
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Narrow Margin
North by Northwest
Northwest Frontier
Night Train to Munich
Polar Express
Runaway Train
Shanghai Express
Silver Streak
Snowpiercer
Source Code
Strangers on a Train
Terror on a Train
Tough Guys
The Train
Transsiberian
Twentieth Century
Union Pacific
Union Station
Unstoppable
Von Ryan’s Express
 
Honorable Mention
At the Circus
Berlin Express 
Cat Ballou
Go West
The Greatest Show on Earth
Murder on the Orient Express (2017 remake)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Some Like It Hot
Throw Momma from the Train 
Trading Places

 
Special Mention
The Railrodder (short)
The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3 (light-rail subway trains)
Murder on the Orient Express (TV version, from the series Poirot)
Great Railway Journeys of the World (TV documentary)
Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose (book) 
Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad by David Haward Bain (book) 

I've also added another new feature in recent years -- a scene from one of the Great Train Movies, or another entry on the list.  And this year we have a critical scene from the wonderful movie The Lady Vanishes, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  The scene features Margaret Lockwood, with a brief appearance by the joyous and (as you'll note) deeply important to the plot, Dame May Witty as 'Miss Froy.'
​

I wrote about this here twelve years ago, but it's is an especially great time to repeat the story.  That's because today, May 8, is the 80th anniversary of arguably one of the two most-famous radio broadcasts in history.  One, of course, is Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds.  The other is On a Note of Triumph by Norman Corwin, which celebrated the Victory in Europe by Allied Forces, commemorating the end of combat there in 1945.

(The defeat of the Nazis and fascism is another excellent reason to celebrate this broadcast today.)

Though his name is not likely recognized as readily today, there is a generation who grew up on, was entertained by and educated from the influential pen of Norman Corwin.  He was known as the Poet Laureate of Radio and is easily the most-acclaimed writer in radio broadcasting, because no other name comes even a close second.  His acclaim was such that his name was included as part of the title of his radio shows, a rare (perhaps unique) honor, something generally reserved for star actors – or corporations – alone.  The show on CBS, 26 by Corwin presented original hour-long plays written and directed by him each week, live.
?

The Norman Corwin website -- which is filled with tons of articles and audio links, and video, and links to his many books -- can tell you a lot more.

Previous to writing about it here, I also wrote about this broadcast several years before for The Huffington Post, but it always deserves its airspace.  On a Note of Triumph, after all, was a special event.  So renowned, even at the time, that it was released on record, and some CBS radio stations re-broadcast it every year for over five decades.  Its renown is such that it can still be heard online, in fact, for years it was on NPR’s website, but I'll embed it below, directly. 

(By the way, television, remember, didn't even exist yet.  The style of the broadcast, to be clear, is very much of its time and topic. The achievement remains monumental.)

NPR had a wonderful hour-long radio documentary about Corwin on its site, as well, hosted by Charles Kuralt, filled with many rich audio clips from the archives.  Indeed, speaking of such things, there not only is a movie documentary on Norwin Corwin, but it won the Academy Award in 2006, A Note of Triumph:  The Golden Age of Norman Corwin.   And as for Academy Awards, Corwin himself was nominated for one, writing the adapted screenplay to Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh.

Corwin’s 1941 broadcast honoring the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights was heard by an unimaginable 63 million people, the largest in U.S. history.  To comprehend this number, that was half the population of the entire nation.  When CBS celebrated its 50th anniversary with a week-long jubilee of its primetime schedule, that glorious, epic tribute at the end, read by Walter Cronkite, to put a "Network at Fifty" in full perspective – was written by Norman Corwin

Take a listen to On a Note of Triumph, if you have a chance, even if only for a short part of it.  The style will be something most people aren’t accustomed to.  But not only was it a different time, it was also a different medium than most people today are accustomed to.  There was no television, remember.  People listened to radio.  Dramas, sitcoms, variety shows, news, talk, sports, political speeches, everything.  They listened and created the worlds in their imagination.  It was also a profoundly patriotic time, when the country had just finished one part of a world war that was deeply understood and just as widely supported, a war where the nation as a whole was asked to sacrifice, and did.  A war that defeated the Nazis attempt to take over the world.  However its style comes across today, On a Note of Triumph is a document, almost poetic, fully proud and grand, of another time and other sensibilities.  A majestic reminder of art, craft and a people.  Honoring the noble victory and hope of brotherhood, yet also asking hard questions about its cost.

Norman Corwin  passed away in 2011, at the age of 101 years.  He kept writing (his work could often be read in Westways magazine, among others), and still taught until at least 97– he was a professor at the University of Southern California.  But then, he never really expected to slow down.  His older brother Emil lived to 107 (passing away on a few months earlier), and their father Sam lived to 112.

Levi’s should only have genes this good.

Back in 2008, when he was a mere, sprightly 96, I had the chance to briefly meet the good fellow, thanks to my friend -- and his longtime friend -- David Rintels (an occasion at which I was able to have him sign a now-cherished copy I had of a collection of his radio dramas), and also got to hear him speak at one of the great-many events he had in his honor.  He ended the evening by answering questions from the audience, one of which was what he’d like his obituary to read.  It’s hard to describe his timing – but imagine laughter building after each perfectly-timed Corwininan pause.  After getting the question, he thought a moment and then at last said:

“Norman Corwin was killed today.

“Shot in a parking lot.

“By a jealous rival

“Of his mistress.”

But that will have to wait.  Norman Corwin will always be around.  As will On a Note of Triumph.  Written and presented 80 years ago, today.
​

​On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is actress Amanda Seyfried.  Her conversation with host Peter Sagal is pretty amusing and often self-effacing, particularly about her latest role as a beat cop, which has long been her dream role since (as she notes) it seems so improbable. 
 
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:30 mark.