Il mistero del vagone letto

Seldom will the words "what were they thinking?!" come to mind while enjoying a film as often as while watching this pseudo-mystery from the early days of sound at MGM - though not as early as the haphazard writing would suggest.

Enjoy it you will, however, as the odds and ends the entertainment are assembled from are largely quality remainders, borrowed from all kinds of other films than the mystery the title leads one to expect.

Who knows what the original mystery play ("The Rear Car") the film is based on was really like? It lacked sufficient merit to make it to Broadway (neither did "Everybody Comes To Rick's," but that didn't seem to hurt CASABLANCA much), but the stagy "thriller" aspects of the center part of the film suggest that the tossed in ingredients didn't hurt it any.

Chief among the "tossed in" ingredients is Charlie Ruggles' Godfrey Scott, a supposed "detective" occupied far more with the kind of bumbling burlesque comedy Ruggles had been perfecting since his movie debut back in 1914 (and would continue to mine right up until his death in 1970). By the 1930's Ruggles was a well recognized Hollywood commodity in such hits as Brandon Thomas' CHARLEY'S AUNT, THE SMILING LIEUTENANT, LOVE ME TONIGHT and ALICE IN WONDERLAND. MURDER IN THE PRIVATE CAR must have seemed a decidedly second tier assignment to the comedian, but he gave it his all . . . though the biggest laugh in the script may come in the credits - "Edgar Allan Woolf," one of the co-writers was clearly named after Edgar Allan POE, the founder of the modern mystery format with his "C. Auguste Dupin stories in the 1840's! So much for legitimate mystery credentials in this film.

The silly plot (a lost heiress found and at risk) had already been the subject of too many musicals and farces to be taken entirely seriously, and the film makers don't spend to much time seriously laying out the clues and red herrings even though the golden age of the murder mystery was near its peak. Instead, they pull out the stops with cinema-friendly special effects like runaway trains and (never explained) secret panels.

It starts and remains a supremely silly hodge podge, but fun nonetheless for all but the serious mystery fan the title seems to want to attract. Watch for Ruggles and Una Merkle, and don't worry so much about the title murder(s) and a good time is to be had.

One thing you can say for sure, it certainly is not a rip-off of "The Thin Man" or any other big budget murder mystery of its time.

The scene opens on two switchboard operators busy at work at an investment firm - Ruth Raymond and Georgia Latham (Mary Carlisle and Una Merkel). One day an investigator informs Ruth that she is the long lost daughter of a wealthy man. She is to be whisked away via a private car to New York to meet her father. She asks her friend and coworker, Georgia, to come along too, and thus the adventure begins.

Onboard the train the bodies start piling up, there is a mysterious invisible voice telling Ruth she has only hours to live, and there are doubts raised as to whether or not she is the long lost daughter of the wealthy man in the first place. Along for the ride is the long-time boyfriend of Ruth, as well as a goofy fellow, Godfrey Scott (Charles Ruggles), who has taken a shine to Georgia before all of this mystery began and appointed himself investigator of the case. There are escaped primates in assorted sizes and also a plot device that reminds me of the "Wild Wild West" TV show.

Ruggles' act can get tiresome depending on how big a dose is injected into a particular movie, but there is so much going on here that I really didn't think him more of a hindrance than a help, plus the building relationship between himself and Merkel's character is adorable. I'd recommend it if you're in the mood for a rather offbeat film that is certainly very atypical output for MGM of the period.

This is the sort of B thriller that made movie-going fun back in the thirties. Mary Carlisle is a hard-working telephone operator at a stock brokerage who suddenly discovers that she's the long-lost daughter of a railroad tycoon. With best pal Una Merkel in tow, she's tricked into boarding a private railway car en route to a reunion with her father. But neither the car nor her fellow passengers are what they appear to be.

Some of it is sorta' silly. There's a circus train wreck thrown in for padding. And Charlie Ruggles' as a "deflective" detective has a few too many goofy bromides. But the climactic chase sequence, as a runaway car roars down miles of twisting mountain track, is superbly directed, shot and edited. And that was back in the days before CGI when you had to film the real thing.

While "Murder in the Private Car" isn't in the same league as "The Narrow Margin" (the gold standard among railroad mysteries,) it's well worth a look. Especially for train buffs. And in just a bit over an hour, it moves along like...well...like a speeding train.

Charles Ruggles, Mary Carlisle, and Una Merkel star in this crime thriller on a train, made just as the Hays Production was starting to be enforced. Merkel and Carlisle are telephone operators, Ruth and Georgia, but when circumstances change, they end up on a train, in a private car, with the absent minded, stuttering Ruggles as Godfrey Scott. He "deflects" crimes before they occur....(?) And of course, a 35 year old Sterling Holloway (voice of Winnie the Pooh) as an office boy. Keep a quick eye out for Walter Brennan, the railroad switch- man, in a real brief appearance. They pack a lot of action into the 63 minute shortie from MGM. Good photography with the train "chase scenes", in spite of all the back mattes and sped up film scenes used. There is a confusing scene near the beginning, before they all get on the train, but it becomes quite an entertaining film. Appears to have been remade in 1942 as Grand Central Murder (?) also by MGM.

"Murder in the Private Car" is from 1934, right at the beginning of the production code.

A pretty switchboard operator, Ruth (Mary Carlisle) is told by detectives that she is the long-lost daughter of a wealthy man. Her coworker (Una Merkel) accompanies her in a private train car ordered for her to take her to her father. But somebody -- a disembodied voice, in fact - wants her dead -- and tells her she has only hours to live.

A man on the train, Godfrey Scott (Charles Ruggles) is on the train. He is a "deflector," one who stops crimes before they start. Ruth's long- time boyfriend is also on the train.

Soon people start being murdered, and it's obvious Ruth is in great danger.

This is an odd movie in that the story - for me, anyway, wasn't very clear. There is a circus train wreck thrown in, giving Ruggles the opportunity to interact with several animals.

The highlight of the film is a train chase, and the process shots were very well done - normally you can tell the background is a movie screen, but here it wasn't always apparent, and the chase was very exciting.

I was confused because it looks in the beginning of the film as if the detectives faked the evidence in order to say that Ruth was the long- lost daughter, but I don't think it was followed up. I guess whether she was or not, she thought she was and the father believed it.

The other thing that threw me was the disembodied voice which I thought I recognized - I won't say who I thought it was, but I spent some time thinking the murderer was someone who wasn't. In fact I'm not sure if the murderer was revealed. I was probably distracted. It reminded me of an old episode of Inspector Morse that was so confusing, I called my friend and asked whodunit. He returned my call and said, "I not only don't know whodunit, I don't know who was killed."

Georgia (Merkel) and Godfrey have a cute relationship that grows during the film.

Definitely worth seeing - Walter Brennan is one of the men at the train switch, obviously a very early role. Sterling Holloway, so familiar to Baby Boomers from TV and the voice of Winnie the Pooh, is also in the film.

MGM supposedly remade this film about ten years later - but to be honest, the description of "Grand Central Murder" doesn't sound the same, except for the train sequence. This movie is also reminiscent of a film with Lana Turner minus the train - so who knows.

I thought this B movie ended before certain things were cleared up.

According to IMDb, Mary Carlisle is still alive at 101. Wow.