Mystery Liner

This is a bit of a curiosity. I don't know much about Noah Beery, but his name on the top of the bill is interesting. He barely appears in the movie. It's about some secret navigation device for piloting ships by remote control. There is an enemy force that is after it and its inventor. On board an ocean liner, where it is being tested, the captain (Beery) becomes deranged and is replaced. Soon a couple murders take place and the captain is seen by people (though he quickly disappears). There is some device where people communicate using a machine where you write in cursive hand. Of course, radio has been invented. This is so silly. There's also a subplot with he romantic aspirations of an old woman who is utterly insufferable. Her being there contributes nothing but the screeching of nails on a blackboard. There is really no plot and in the end I'm not sure anything was resolved. Not really much of a movie.

On board this ritzy passenger liner, the ship's control room communicates with a roomful of scientists on shore using a cool two-way Etch-a-sketch style device: You scrawl out your message on a picture screen, and at the other end they see your handwritten message appear just as you wrote it. Pretty neat! Unfortunately, that's probably the most interesting thing about the whole movie.

This B suspense picture features a broad array of standard characters—embattled veteran captain with mysterious health issues (Noah Beery), all-business doctor, pretty blond nurse (Astrid Allwyn) who is being pursued by a rival pair of ship's officers, a firecracker of an old lady who wants to party, a tall and thin mystery traveler (Gustav von Seyffertitz), and a military man (Edwin Maxwell) who quickly appoints himself chief investigator when mysterious events kick in.

The mystery centers around a high tech invention called S-505, which is apparently a tube that will enable a ship to be steered and controlled remotely. The invention is ready to be tested—but look out! because a sinister foreign power is very interested in the device and may have spies aboard.

It all adds up to intrigue, deceit, and even murder….but alas, the actors and plot are sadly defeated by slow pacing, obvious dialog, and just a generally muddled presentation of the whole story. Too bad, because there is a nifty story buried in there somewhere.

The story in this B-feature has some fairly interesting developments, and it makes the movie just worth watching despite a very slow pace and some other weaknesses. The acting performances vary in quality from solid to weak, and the production is adequate most of the time. So in most respects it is a typical B-movie of its era, but the story offered some possibilities that might have furnished the basis of a better movie.

The story starts with a liner preparing to test a Professor's device for using remote-control to guide the ship from a laboratory. The experiment is complicated by the captain's nervous breakdown and by an on-board murder. The ship also contains numerous passengers, some with various eccentricities and others with some suspicious characteristics. While the setup could have been taken in a number of different directions, the way it actually develops is probably as good as any.

One of the main things that keeps it from being better is that too many of the key characters never take form, remaining uninteresting and one-dimensional. Likewise, the dialogue never approaches the interest level of the story. And too often, things move very slowly, making it seem longer than the running time.

On the plus side, it maintains the mystery level rather well, and it does hold your attention. The atmosphere is not always maintained, but for much of the time the shipboard setting is used fairly well. More than anything, the remote-control idea is used in a way that was rather creative for its era, and it almost provides enough interest in itself to make you keep watching.

This Edgar Wallace murder mystery takes place aboard an ocean liner being piloted automatically, as everyone and his grandmother is trying to get hold of the tube that pilots the ship without benefit of human hands. Ed Maxwell, veteran of the early silver seen, has a decent role as an investigating private eye. He may remind some of Nero Wolfe. Zeffie Tilbury, as Granny Plympton, a familiar face from Little Rascals shorts, was the most annoying character. No mystery here, and dreadfully acted and sound-produced to boot. It feels like a play transferred directly to Hollywood. Some of the performers would appear to have come right from the NY stage.

Talky mystery that never really gels. Events concern an ocean liner being tested for remote control. Since a successful test will revolutionize warships and naval warfare, the test is being done in secret. Nonetheless, an unnamed foreign power gets wind of the experiment and gets an undercover agent aboard. But which of the many characters is it, and how many will be murdered before the end.

Cheapo Monogram is constrained to film inside cramped ship-board sets, though oddly we never see the supposed water below. And since there's little action or pacing, the narrative fails to crystallize plot potential. Events tend to meander rather than build. I suspect the problem lies with trying to cram too much of the Wallace novel onto the screen On the other hand, the reveal did surprise me, while showing a good twist on the usual. Too bad that imagination didn't extend to directing and lighting.

Though Beery headlines--probably for marquee reasons--he has little screen time. Instead, rotund Maxwell carries the plot as a self-appointed sleuth. I guess the aged Tilbury is supposed to be comedy relief, likely because lanky Jerry Stewart proves so inept. Too bad her over-acting hits more of a sour note than a funny bone.

Anyway, I didn't dislike the results as much as many others. Still, it's an easily forgettable entry among that decade's slew of cheap whodunnits.