The Railway Children Masterpiece Theater 2000

A charming and very British tale set at the turn of the century, 19th to 20th century that is.  A well to do British father is arrested and jailed for unspecified crimes.  His wife, in order to keep her children with her, decides to cut expenses to the bone.  She sells the nice London house, and its furnishings, and moves the family to a humble place out in the country. 
   Arriving after dark in a strange place, the locals lend a helping hand getting them from the railway station to country place.  As days go by the children strike up acquaintances with the railway workers and passengers.  One thing leads to another, and the children persuade an elder and wealthy gentleman (played wonderfully by Richard Attenborough) to take an interest in their father's case and get him sprung from jail.  Happy ending.  Good warm feeling kind of flick.  For rail fans like me, there are lots of good shots of British steam trains chugging thru the extra scenic British countryside.  
    The flick portrays an England of many social levels, and every one fits comfortably into his or her level and works to carry out his job to the best of his ability. There is a warm consensus about right and wrong, honor and duty.  You get a feeling for the social glue that held England together thru the two terrible world wars to come.  Nice feeling.
   The feeling was strong enough to upset the lefty Masterpiece Theatre commentators.  They tacked on a lecture at the end explaining that real railway directors were nasty people like Commodore Vanderbilt and Deacon Drew, the charming Richard Attenborough character never existed in real life.  Which is too bad.  I like the notion of benevolent men running the society.  The idea for the movie came from a book by E. Nesbit published in England.  Although I never read it, over here we had The Box Car Children, a different schtick, it was good enough to support seven different movies and TV shows since the early 1950's.  Clearly the author's idea was pretty strong, and possibly closer to real than a that of a lefty American commentator.