Night Train to Murder

A will to be read at midnight, a maniac made up to look like the Phantom of the Opera, all the heirs being murdered, and Morecombe and Wise.

Eric Morecombe is even reading the story of what's going on in a cheap book, which pastiches a bunch of mysteries of the 1940s. They're playing a couple of mediocre music hall song-and-dance men, and there's a lot of potential in this TV movie. Unfortunately, there's no energy in the performances, and a dull pace of editing. It's the last time that that Morecombe and Wise worked together. Eric Morecombe was in poor health when they made this and there's little energy in their performances. He would die five months later at the age of 58. Ernie Wise would make one more solo appearance the following year, and follow his longtime partner in in 1999, aged 73.

Morecombe and Wise had formed their comedy partnership in 1941, and had prospered many years with the combination of schoolboy humor and soft amiability. The only chemistry in evidence between them is in the concluding scene, when they are walking away from the camera on a long road, singing old songs and telling old jokes to each other. It was a good moment to go out on. It's too bad the movie isn't much good.