User reviews

I bought the video of Non-Stop New York on a whim when I saw it was about a double-decker airplane with an outside deck(!). However, the plane only comes into play during the last half of the film, and when it does, the design of it is so downplayed that we assume double-decker planes were mainstream travel in 1938. The plot involves a chorus girl trying to free an innocent man from death row while being pursued by the gangsters that did it. Yeah, we've all seen it before, but the plane, and the way the movie uses it, truly make this trip worth it.

In my opinion, if you stumbled across a film as esoteric as this in the IMDb and actually are taking the time to read about it, you'll enjoy it. This is what all those Airport movies wish they were.

Robert Stevenson (1905-1986) was a superb British director, but his name is not widely enough recognised. He is probably most famous for JANE EYRE (1944) with Orson Welles and TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS (1940). Less well known are his excellent DISHONORED LADY (1947, see my review), and his truly magnificent OWD BOB (1938, see my review), which he made the year after this. In this year, he also made KING SOLOMON'S MINES with Anna Lee, who stars once again in this film of his. This really is a most fascinating film, because of the spectacular second half which takes place on a trans-Atlantic Clipper seaplane, the interior of which resembles that of a zeppelin, on multiple levels with individual sleeping compartments, bar and restaurant. It even has a little balcony where people stand outside to take the air and look down upon the ships which are not far below them. Francis L. Sullivan here gives one of his finest performances as the oiliest and least scrupulous of villains, truly hair-raising in his wickedness. Anna Lee is a typical 1930s English 'sweetie', but with more fibre and character than is usual for that time, and she handles the part of the courageous accidental heroine very well. She is determined to save the wrong man from being executed in America for a crime he did not commit. Anna stows away on the Clipper to get back to America to give her evidence, which Scotland Yard had refused to take seriously. This is very much a Hitchcock-style suspense thriller, and makes excellent viewing. It deserves to be more widely known, as it is certainly a British pre-War classic. If Britain had as many film buffs as there are in America, where almost any trivial B or C movie can achieve fame nowadays, films like this would be familiar and praised, rather than obscure and forgotten. But the British are lazy about their cinematic heritage, and films like this are never shown on British television, so no one even knows they exist. In this film, the child actor Desmond Tester is most amusing as an eccentric child musical prodigy who becomes entangled in the murderous intrigues going on aboard the Clipper plane. If only British films still produced wonderfully strange character actors like that! It was also amusing to see a young Peter Bull scowling with his heavy jowls as a blackmailer in this film. In real life, he was actually rather jolly, although extraordinarily bombastic and often too loud, and he was always available for a chat when he ran his astrological shop in Notting Hill Gate in the 1960s and 1970s.

English and American characters and accents mingle in this lively thriller about a murder witness on the run.…from and then back to New York.

Anna Lee is our heroine, a young English chorus girl; hungry and out of luck in New York and about to board ship for home, she is befriended by a young lawyer who invites her over for a meal. Once inside his apartment, however, the man is promptly murdered by a gang of thugs headed by big smoothy Francis L. Sullivan. Noting that Lee is "the only person alive who knows that we were in that apartment last night"—at least that's what he thinks at the time—Sullivan subtly trails her.

The action moves to London, where the gang attempts to prevent Lee from returning to New York, where the imminent execution of an innocent fall guy will close the case. Will Lee's character realize the situation? And will she be able to reach America in time to save the innocent man's life? –This is where the story takes off: when all of the major characters board a trans-Atlantic airplane that is easily the most memorable element of this movie.

The plane is like no other: ordinary airliner on the outside, on the inside it's more like an ocean liner—complete with staterooms instead of rows of seats. It's even got a sort of porch—an observation deck—for characters who care to step outside, mid-Atlantic Ocean, and get a breath of wind in the face.

Among the cast, Anna Lee is quite dashing as the girl with a brain and some courage. John Loder is fine as a handsome young police inspector who is drawn into the case and onto the plane; Loder and Lee don't have a whole lot of scenes together but share a cute scene on the observation deck.

Francis L. Sullivan is excellent as the boss gangster. With the looks of Sidney Greenstreet and a voice like George Sanders, he is indeed a memorable villain. Young Desmond Tester is also a lot of fun to watch—a violin prodigy traveling with a grumpy aunt, the kid is prone to snooping and illicit saxophone playing.

A nice variety of characters, a decent plot, and that fantastic airliner make this one a winner.

"Non-Stop New York" is a delightful film from 1937 starring Anna Lee, John Loder, and Francis L. Sullivan.

Anna Lee (Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital) is pretty Jenny Carr, a young British actress in New York City with a flop play. So soon, she'll be on her way back to London. She meets a man who sees she's hungry and offers to buy her a meal.

That man is later murdered, and a bum is arrested. He is due to be executed in a matter of days. He says that an English girl knows he didn't do it, but no one can find her. She's already home. Once she sees a headline that she's being searched for, she realizes she has to get back to the US immediately. She and her mother find a plane that goes London to NY in 18 hours, and her mother pretends to be drowning while Jenny boards the plane.

Little does Jenny know but the real killers are out to stop her.

This plane is something to behold. It's a clipper, and apparently this type of plane did exist. Wish it still did. The inside is more like a train, with sleeping compartments, dining room, and one can step out onto a terrace like thing outside the plane. It also flies rather low. Totally amazing.

Francis L. Sullivan is excellent as the slimy gang head who wears different disguises in his quest to get rid of Jenny. Apparently - could this be true - he was 35 years old when he did this. If you'd told me he was 65 I would have believed you.

John Loder, who was married at one time to Hedy Lamarr, is the handsome investigator who really doesn't believe Jenny.

This film is available on youtube. Try and see it - it's very enjoyable.

Anna Lee plays a woman in New York who sees a strange man before a murder is committed. John Loder plays the innocent man who is sent to Sing Sing for the murder the mystery man committed. When Lee finds out about it (she's in London now) she rushes back to New York to save the innocent man after the local London police won't forward her story to the American authorities. Thus the title, and the unusual sight of a gigantic flying Clipper ship that gives this film its curio value. The movie itself is an implausible Hitchcock-lite mystery-thriller, but the giant passenger plane IS interesting. It features six engines and two floors with staterooms and the whole lot, reminiscent of a Zeppelin type of luxury. Hard to imagine how these people could handle turbulence! Francis L. Sullivan is the familiar burly villain, reminiscent of an airship-sized George Sanders. The most absurd element of this film, aside from that fantasy airplane, is the notion that all the main suspects in the previous murder just happen to be aboard that same plane on the same flight. Still, it has its moments.

"Non-Stop New York" is a British film that has lapsed into the public domain. However, despite this, it is well made and quite enjoyable. However, I strongly hesitate calling it 'Hitchcockian' like some of the other reviewers.

The film begins with a hungry and out of work actress (Anna Lee) being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A man is murdered and she's lucky she wasn't killed. And, she's completely unaware of the killing! Because she then is out of circulation for some time, she is unaware that a man was convicted of the murder--and she can exonerate him because she knows he wasn't involved. But the gang behind the killing isn't about to let her go to the police about it and they throw impediments in her way. So, she takes off from England--a stowaway on a clipper plane bound for New York where the man is waiting on death row. She intends to tell the authorities in the States what she knows--the gang plans on murdering her aboard this plane.

This film has a few plot holes and bad performances here and there. But, it IS entertaining. I particularly liked the ending--improbable but exciting to watch. Overall, this is a better than average British film and one that will keep you on the edge of your seat at times.

I first heard of Non-stop New York while browsing, of all things, the Aurum Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction films. The only reason that this film was included in that book was because it is 'futuristic' by 3 years; it was made in 1937 while the main action takes place in 1940. One interesting point is that the filmmakers did not know that WW2 had started by then and so there is no mention of it.

For some reason, the film is very obscure, only 39 viewers (including me) having voted for it on IMDb at the time of this writing. But is a fast moving little thriller full of incisive British wit. The film is so quintessentially British that one cannot help but notice that even the 'Americans' are local actors wincing with their attempts at transatlantic accents. But for this one minor flaw, the film is thoroughly enjoyable with perfect casting and good, if lightweight performances. An added bonus, certainly from my own perspective, is that most of the action takes place on board a Transatlantic Clipper, one of those seaplanes that were so glamorous in the 1930s. A definite Collector's item and I am the proud owner of a good quality VHS tape.

This unknown classic is a must see. It is fast paced in the Hitchcock style and well acted with a lot of droll sequences intertwined between. Anna Lee couldn't be prettier or more charming. The entire cast including the villain Francis Sullivan are great. The British attempt at American slang is slightly noticeable but otherwise the direction is top notch. I just love that luxury aeroplane and wish that it was a reality to the present air traveller to rid him of the monotony of long travel. The storyline may be a little slow paced but is offset by the acting. Certainly a movie far before its period and not necessarily a curio but most interesting to watch.

This film is bonkers. We have dodgy acting, completely unreal situations, a fantasy airplane and a ludicrous solution to the final predicament. The story doesn't matter so much as the enjoyable way it is told. This film is fun.

Anna Lee (Jennie) is picked up by a gangster lawyer who wants to leave New York and his life of defending criminals. He feels sorry for Anna who is a starving, out-of-work chorus girl and invites her back to his place (oh yeah, I know your game). Anyway, he gets visited by some heavies and gang leader Francis L Sullivan (Brant) makes sure he never gets to finish the book he was reading. Anna becomes the next target as she has seen them. We follow her travel back to England across the ocean where she is set-up for some jail time, realizes the wrong man has been arrested for the murder in New York, and makes it back to New York by mail plane to hopefully secure his freedom.

Anna Lee is pretty but also pretty bad at acting. There is no way she is an out-of-work chorus girl, more like a high-end fashion designer. She speaks with an outrageously posh accent - words like 'happen' are pronounced 'heppen' and at times, she gushes out her dialogue as if she were an enthusiastic child of 7. You're a grown woman! When we meet her mother, Drusilla Wills, well, what is that all about!! No way are these 2 characters related!! This is part of the film's charm - nothing makes sense.

The plane has to be seen to be believed. It's like a luxury cruise ship with apartments, dining rom and bar and at one point I said "hold on, I think I've just seen police inspector John Loder (Jim) smoking a cigarette outside!" Cue the next scene when doors are opened, just as on a cruise ship, that give you access to the deck area - an outside space. On a plane! If this isn't crazy enough, wait till you see what John Loder has to do to save the passengers as the cruise ship airplane hurtles towards the sea.

I must mention the brat of a child that is Desmond Tester (Arnold) who is a violin playing prodigy who says he hates music. He's actually alright and makes some funny observations along the way.

It's a memorable film and I wish planes like this existed today.

Anna Lee is a chorine on her last legs on Broadway, when she sort of witnesses a murder. Before she realizes it, she has been framed for theft and spent several years as a guest of His Majesty. When she gets out and realizes that they're about to hang an innocent man. So she goes to Scotland Yard, where Inspector John Loder is unconvinced by her vague memories and inability to identify the actual murder. Since there's only a couple of days left, she stows away on a flying clipper to New York, and guess who else is there? Not only Loder, but Francis Sullivan, the actual murderer.

The story is put together in a fairly clever way, and it's all given an appropriately Mid-Atlantic sound, what with Sullivan affecting a Uruguayan accent for his own purposes. Frank Cellier has a nice role as a blackmailer looking for material and Robert Stevenson directs in his usual competent but non-individual manner. It was clearly produced by British-Gaumont for distribution on both sides of the Atlantic, but other than making a few British actors a bit more familiar to American audiences, it didn't set any house records at the time.

Given that transatlantic passenger airline routes were in the pipeline when this film was made it is surprising that the producers got so much wrong.The idea that there would be an exterior passengers platform is downright nonsensical. The plot becomes a bit over elaborate though this is compensated for by a reasonably exciting climax.

Keen on saving the neck of a burglar who has been framed for a mob murder she witnessed overseas, a penniless London chorus girl stows away on a non-stop flight to New York and has to evade the mobsters who have also boarded in this crime thriller directed by Robert Stevenson in his pre-Disney days. As one might be able to deduce from such a complicated plot description alone, the movie is rife in convenient coincidences and implausible events, but it makes for relatively amusing viewing, provided one does not think about it too much. There are some great supporting turns, particularly from Francis L. Sullivan as the daunting main mobster, Desmond Tester in a comic relief part as a music student with too much spare time on his hands and Athene Seyler as his overbearing aunt. The real star of the show though is the titular aircraft that the protagonist boards and while the film is rather slow leading up to the reveal of the craft (35 minutes in), it is worth the wait. Spanning two floors with balconies and cabins that make the interiors look more like a ship than a plane, it has to rate as one of the most imaginative aircrafts ever conceived for a motion picture, adding some delightful to kookiness to what otherwise might be a rather ordinary tale. The special effects are pretty remarkable for 1937 too - both inside and outside of the plane. Of course, it feels a little odd to talk so much about the plane and so little about the rest of the movie, but given the choice of title, it seems clear that the producers also knew that the plane was their best asset here.

In New York after a man is murdered by gangsters and an innocent man (Arthur Goullett) is convicted and sentenced to death. His alibi, a blonde girl (Anna Lee) who was with the murdered man has returned to the UK. When she learns that the wrong man has been sentenced to death, she agrees to fly back in a luxury plane to testify. One of the killers (Francis L. Sullivan) is also on the cross Atlantic flight and plots to kill her.

A good fun thriller with the luxury plane and cross Atlantic journey being a decent and original selling point. Light hearted in tone, it has something about it that would have appealed to Hitchcock and is good fun stuff. Of course it looks very dated now, but it is also something of a different type of film, yet at the same time the basic premise is a well trodden one.

I saw this film some years back on PBS and only wish I could find a copy of it now. A young woman witnesses a murder in New York, and promptly leaves for England. She sees the news in a London paper about a man in New York about to be executed for the murder, and she knows he is innocent. She has to get back to NY as fast as possible to save an innocent man from the electric chair, and so she stows on the Air Boat, Non-stop to New York. Some of the lines are so good that years later, they still echo in my head.

Much of the movie takes place on this incredible aircraft, which takes off from the Thames in London, and is like a flying..., well, boat. Dining room, state rooms, close quarters, nasty travel companions. It's all here.

Borders on Film Noir, but with a wry sense of humor.

If you like the style of the 1940s, and slightly outlandish stories so characteristic of the period, I dare say you will enjoy this English trifle quite a bit!

I won't reveal the ending, so you'll have to see the film to know if she arrives in time!

Well this was surprising little treat - a light-hearted '30s crime thriller with an appealing lead, a fun cast of supporting characters, a snappy pace, and a delightfully absurd second half that takes place on a rather fanciful mode of transport.

The film opens in New York on New Year's Eve, with penniless, out-of-work English showgirl Jennie Carr (winsome blonde Anna Lee) meeting lawyer Billy Cooper (James Pirrie) in a café, and accepting an invitation for dinner at his apartment. The evening doesn't go as planned, however, when criminal Hugo Brant (Francis L. Sullivan) turns up, forcefully ejects Jennie (chicken leg in hand), and then shoots Cooper for refusing to work for him any longer. Blissfully unaware of the murder, Jennie returns to England, where she is arrested on a trumped up charge of robbery.

When Jennie is released from prison, she reads about Cooper's murder in the paper, and discovers that a vagrant called Henry Abel has been wrongly convicted of the killing and faces the death penalty. Jennie tries to tell the authorities about the men who confronted Cooper in his apartment, but Brant (now in England) ensures that no-one believes her story. Desperate to save Abel's life, Jennie stows on board the Airline, a flying boat destined for New York.

Up to this point, the film has been fun, but nothing particularly special; however, when the Airline takes off, so does the film, Jennie's journey being hugely entertaining from start to finish, with a wonderfully eclectic selection of co-passengers adding to the enjoyment: London police inspector Jim Grant, con-artist Sam Pryor (Frank Cellier), young violin prodigy Arnold James (Desmond Tester) and his aunt veronica (Athene Seyler), and, of course, the wicked Brant, who will do anything to stop Jennie from testifying. The plane itself is also a major character: a massive double decker craft complete with dining room, bar, luxurious cabins, and - best of all - a balcony from which passengers can observe ships passing below!

Duplicitous Sam's plan to blackmail Brant involves plucky young Arnold getting in over his head, lucky Jim becomes romantically involved with Jennie, and Brant leaves the plane mid-flight courtesy of Aunt Veronica's parachute, the fiend having killed the pilot. In the film's incredible climax, heroic Jim Grant has to climb over the top of the plane's exterior as it plunges towards the ocean, a wonderfully bonkers moment that really has to be seen to be believed.

Intriguing plot and fabulous Art Deco sets and the clipper ship is lovely and a great setting for a mystery. Thoroughly enjoyable!

In NYC, struggling actress Jennie Carr (Anna Lee) finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery, with her own life in imminent danger. After fleeing to London, and getting little help from Scotland Yard, Jennie stows away on the transatlantic mega-plane of the title.

The NON-STOP NEW YORK is a sort of luxury liner in the sky. It gets very interesting when both the killers and a Scotland Yard Inspector happen to be aboard for the flight.

Packed with intrigue, thrills, and humor, this movie deserves to be rediscovered...