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The Wrecker
(1928)

This British railroad drama features the largest staged railroad crash in British film history, filmed with no less than 22 motion picture cameras.

Strike Force Entertainment
2009 DVD edition

The Wrecker (1928), black & white, 14 minutes, BBFC Classification U, with [Vintage Cine Kodak Services Trailer] (19??), black & white, 1 minute, not rated, Mid-Hants Railway: A Line Preserved (19??), black & white, 5 minutes, not rated, Iowa State Fair Staged Rail Crash (1932), black & white, 1 minute, not rated, Derailment (1944), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, and Impressions of a Train Wreck: Korea (1952), black & white, 4 minutes, not rated.

Strike Force Entertainment, 9971017, UPC 5-027626-101749.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; £19.99.
Release date: 16 November 2009.
Country of origin: England

This PAL DVD edition has been mastered from an extremely abridged 9.5mm reduction print. Despite low expectations, the image quality is very-good.

The film is accompanied by a music score performed on piano by Neil Brand.

The disc is supplemented with 74 minutes of railroad-related material and featurettes about the making of The Wrecker.

See the BBC’s webstory on The Wrecker.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.