Watch The Signalman For Free

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Overrated and overhyped

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

A Charles Dickens classic short, expertly transformed to mid-seventies TV by director Lawrence Gordon Clark on the expert adaptation for the small screen by Andrew Davies. Taught, direct camera-work keeps the claustrophobic feel of the Signalman's life superbly realized; more so when the 'Traveller' comes to visit unexpectedly in the low autumn sunlight that barely reaches the cutting track below. The use of an actual signal box, so not in a studio, helps to keep the realism and feel of trepidation at a heightened level (their breath can be clearly seen in the cold air come night time when they both step outside of the signal box). All in all, a classic piece of British TV that could been rarely bettered, even today. You don't need cgi and huge production values to scare; just 40 minutes of first class direction and acting, which this has in abundance.

A traveller (Bernard Lloyd) on a walking holiday stumbles on a remote signal box situated low down between two steep hillsides and close to the mouth of a tunnel. Its a dark and shadowy place even in daylight, He decides to take a closer look, The Signalman (Denholm Elliot) is at first very wary of the Traveller, but then invites him in out of the cold. They chat for hours on the dull minutiae of daily life in such a tiresome yet stress filled job, The Traveller questions The Signalman about his initial curious attitude towards him, slowly he apologizes and reveals to him that he had mistaken him for a dark ghostly figure that had called out to him on a few occasions, his presence always heralding a terrible event. The traveller is a learned man and tries to assist his new companion by trying to look at his stories with a modern rational eye, giving him solace from his fears, The Signalman listens intently but his fear remains.Another in the "Ghost Story for Christmas" series and the first not to have M R James as the inspiration, this is based on a Charles Dickens short story. Dickens himself was a regular traveller by train and was at one point involved in a train crash, his knowledge of the railway shines through in this work. Clark again helms this moody and claustrophobic adaptation and yet again it's a very spooky thought provoking film. Like other films in the series, its slow to get going, but this is a good point as we are treated to plenty of character development that creates a sense of impending doom, as does the eerily delightful location. Andrew Davies script is very faithful to the original story and succeeds in retaining much of its terrifying premises. Denholm Elliot is superb as the nervous and fidgety signalman, whose fear seems very real and we the viewer are left guessing as to his sanity until the very end. Lloyd is also excellent and is the viewers "in" to the story, he poses the questions we want to hear with a quizzical glee. The final reveal of the film may not be surprising but its delightfully done. This series stands as a benchmark in how to make great ghost stories in a visual medium and still retain the atmosphere fear and apprehension of a reader of these works.

"Please, my friend, you must compose yourself!" Indeed he must, for Denholm Elliot is in full over-acting mode. There is more steam emitting from his ears than blowing forth from the train. He is acting like there's no tomorrow, which, heh, heh, may or may not be the case.This is one of the Ghost Story For Christmas series I missed as a kid. The shrouded figure, either a monk or grim reaper is a familiar motif throughout its run, and shows up here to do some arm waving.As this is a two hander, you know one of the protagonists is soon to be pushing up the daisies. Guessing which and how is perhaps the only modest interest this dated entry will allow.

Costume dramas today are equally reviled and revered for their superficiality, their concentration on surface pleasures - the recreation of a past historical period, country houses, costumes, gestures, manner of speaking, in a way that was virtually absent in the classic works - e.g. Dickens, Austen - they are based on, where these things were part of everyday life. Such a concentration might have a useful value - to underline in concrete terms the restrictions on individuality in the period - but more often they are recreated and enjoyed for their own sake. This is why they are often called 'heritage' works - something to be preserved, frozen in time, as in a museum, rather than anything that might say anything to us today.Since the early 1990s, the heritage drama revived spectacularly with successes such as 'Middlemarch' and, especially, 'Pride and Prejudice'. The architect of this revival has been screenwriter Andrew Davies, who might be seen as its auteur. But Davis wasn't always a literary curator, as this strange offering from the 1970s shows. If modern heritage drama is defined by its sumptuous visual pleasure, its fetishising of period detail, and its vivid cast of quaint characters, than 'The Signalman' is its austere opposite, a dark chamber two-hander, confined to one location, a railway box shrouded in a steep valley by a tunnel. Where the modern heritage drama priveleges long shots to emphasise detailed production values, 'Signalman' is full of grim close-ups; period details are minimal, the mise-en-scene often impenetrably obscure. There is no jolly music, just eerie, science-fiction type sound effects which literally express the thematic importance of telegraph wires, but more deeply give an estranging sense of unfamiliarity, the modern intruding on the 'safe' past. My husband, a big fan of Davies' later work, thought it was like a Beckett play, and promptly fell asleep. I was enthralled by its puritanical stripping down of superficial pleasure, creating the proper atmosphere for a ghost story, but also emphasising the narrative's ritualistic aspect - the setting in a space apart from 'civilised' life; the focus on characters defined by their solitude; the three-part nature of the story. Denholm Elliot is a railway signalman who on occasions has seen a supernatural vision of someone yelling 'You down below', and waving his arms. This vision has twice been followed by horrific train accidents. A stranger passing by, who has been mysteriously confined for some time, listens to his story, and insists on the rational view - that it is a product of a mind worked on by the bleak loneliness of his situation. The Signalman takes his advice to forget all about it.Dickens is such a relentlessly social, sprawling novelist, it is a pleasure to see something as pared back and concentrated as this. The connection made in the source between scientific progress (telegrams, railways) and the supernatural, between telegrams and visions as media of information transmission, of the effects on time made by the annhilation of space produced by new technology, may not be as lucidly brought out as they might, but as an example of how serious and genuinely faithful (i.e. in spirit) TV literary adaptations used to be, this is a must.