Last Clear Chance
About Last Clear Chance
On the day Alan Dixon's driver's license arrives, Idaho state trooper Hal Jackson sits down with the Dixon family at their farm. He tells Alan how not to get killed at a railroad crossing. The lesson is built from wrecks caused by drivers who tried to beat a train.
Cast & crew
More about Last Clear Chance
Robert Carlisle produced and directed the safety short. Leland Baxter wrote it. The Union Pacific Railroad sponsored it and distributed it. Wondsel, Carlisle & Dunphy, a New York company, made it. William Boyett plays Hal Jackson. Parts were shot in Idaho. The National Safety Council, the Idaho State Police, and the Colorado State Patrol helped on the production. The story was suggested by a real family.
Themes
Making
Carlisle shot the lecture on a farm and cut in crossing wrecks. The trooper's visit is timed to the morning the license shows up, so the warning lands before Alan drives.
Preservation
A copy is preserved in the Prelinger Archives and can be streamed or downloaded there.
Notes
- Harold Agee, Mrs. Harold Agee, Tim Bosworth, Bill Agee, Christine Lynch, and Lou Spraker are in the cast with Boyett.
- The legal phrase in the title is the last-clear-chance rule, about who could still have avoided a crash.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 used the short in a 1993 episode.
- A print is in the Prelinger Archives.
- Union Pacific sent prints out as a crossing warning for young drivers.
Scenes
- Officer Jackson arrives at the Dixon farm the day Alan's license comes.
- He walks the family through drivers who tried to beat a train.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Last_Clear_Chance_The)
- Wikimedia Commons (Last Clear Chance (1959).webm)