blakedw

An extraordinarily bad film which makes no sense. The protagonist works at a strategic studies institute but obviously once worked for British intelligence. He gets caught up in what seem like two or three plots by people of varying degrees of nastiness. Continuity is almost non-existent. Scenes appear which make no sense so that it appears explanatory scenes must have been cut out by mistake. Yet there are also long scenes which have no purpose except possibly to pad out the length.

This looks great and has very fine writing and performances. There's a limit to how many plot variations an amateur detective can have and Bookish doesn't really try to push the envelope.

But that is part of its charm.. familiarity with the characters and plots makes it all more enjoyable.

The one negative and itis a big one is that the sound quality s not good enough to make the dialogue clear in all circumstances. Could badly do with optional subtitles.

This is a beautifully crafted murder-cum-jewel heist-cum-romance with some great stunt work on a train. We see the characters assemble in Los Angeles station ready to board the train to San Francisco. As we meet them we get shown the various ways they could come into conflict. There's the jeweler with an eye for the ladies, a lady with an eye for the jewels and various others of differing degrees of respectability. Not shown, though it is clear he will pop up some time is the mad murderer on the run.

The love interest comes from Jimmy, a reporter who gets on the train at the last minute and Alice.

The first killing shakes everything up, turning people out of their dormitory style beds as the police try to catch the killer.

It's very hard to make a bad film set on a train unless it's the Orient Express, but the action in those one is great.

Pure joy from start to finish.