The Mystery Train

'Poverty Row' doesn't always mean 'poor quality', we know that very well. It may mean modest means of production, maybe a lower quality of picture and sound and even directing - but it VERY often means an unexpectedly good cast, and a really suspenseful, unusual and original plot. And "The Mystery Train" certainly has got both: Hedda Hopper (who later became Hollywood's most famous and feared gossip columnist), young Marceline Day, who'd already been a star in silent dramas as well as comedies, and Nick Stuart, always a reliable 'handsome young man' in B movies... And as for the plot - now, a B movie with a running time of just a little over an hour seldom gets boring; but THIS one keeps you fascinated for EVERY single moment...

It's the story of how fate often puts things in the right - or the wrong - place: on a train, a middle-aged businesswoman (Hopper) has just learned that she's lost all her money on the stock market, while her lawyer tells her about one of his clients, a young man who's just inherited a large fortune; and she remarks what a shame it is that she hasn't got a daughter to marry that rich young fellow... While in the next compartment, a cop is just taking a young girl handcuffed to the jail, while she keeps swearing that she didn't commit the crime she's been convicted for - and then the train jumps off the tracks, and in the ensuing chaos, the girl manages to free herself from the handcuffs and the unconscious cop; while, when the survivors are all asked for their names, the crafty lady reacts quickly and presents the girl as her niece - pretending to be wanting to help her, but in reality hoping that SHE'll be the one the rich heir will fall for and marry, bringing an immensely valuable diamond that's part of the heritage into her possession...

This movie is so full of suspense, romance and action that it'll surely enthrall EVERY fan of classic crime and romance films - most of all because the cast, namely the two 'lovers', are so engaging and sympathetic that you simply can't HELP feeling with them, hoping and fearing for them... Something that MANY a highly praised A movie doesn't manage to achieve!

This movie is apparently in Public Domain and I downloaded it from Jimbo Berkey's fantastic site. I then uploaded to the Cloud and watched in on TV with my Streaming Media device (can I say Roku?).

I love anything to do with Railroading's Steam Days, so this would at least be a time killer on a rainy day.

However, it turned out to be a pretty darn good movie, with a neat story, good acting and GREAT railroading scenes.

Hedda Hopper was a better actress than you might have thought, if you even ever heard of her. She may even be better than her Son William, TV Perry Mason's Private Dick, Paul Drake. All the other actors were fine too.

I especially liked the Newlyweds on the Train, who along with the Porter supplied the Comic Relief. That and some genuine Hair Raising Train scenes really added to the movie.

I plan on watching this movie again and I think lots of other people might want to give it a look.

Hedda Hopper, respected and feared Hollywood gossip columnist, began her Hollywood career acting in bit parts. In this pre-Code quickie, she has a rare leading role as a society lady whose estate is dwindling fast and in order to save her "assets," she hatches a plan to inherit money. The train she's on derails and she befriends and uses a young lady who is running from the law. She vouches for her and makes her masquerade as her niece to marry into a wealthy family. Therefore, as the Aunt, she will then come into some very valuable jewelry she has been coveting. This exciting and fast-paced programmer has some predictable complications as the young man/victim and the "niece" fall in love, and she doesn't like lying to him. But Hedda threatens to expose her if she doesn't comply with this temporary deception. Logic flies out the window here. What does Hedda expect to happen – to get away with her shenanigans? But this little film is long on entertainment and has a very exciting finale on a runaway train. Every once in a while, I find a film I love to talk about and recommend to real film lovers; this is my latest one! "Mystery Train" is a long- lost film classic that should be discovered today!

"The Mystery Train" is an alluring title for a movie. And it has the premise for a good plot. Unfortunately, it goes the way of so many other poverty row productions of the early Hollywood years. The screenplay is poorly done, and the script is very weak. The technical aspects are poor, the cinematography is low rate and the directing and acting are examples of why so many lesser studios and would-be stars didn't last long.

The only person of any stature in the film is Hedda Hopper. She never attained stardom as an actress, but kept plugging away with small roles into old age. She had 146 film credits in her lifetime. Of course, she was most known as a Hollywood gossip columnist. That was from the mid- 1930s to the mid-1950s. And she kept doing small parts in movies here and there while peddling her popular and lucrative gossip business.

Hopper had a rival – Louella Parsons, who came on the gossip scene much sooner. But, Parsons didn't have an acting career. The interest in this film is mostly to see Hopper in one of her roles. She wasn't in any major hits or high quality movies. So, movie buffs might have to look hard to find films in which she has a role.

I was curious about some of the actors, so I looked them up on IMDb. Some of them had long stints in silent films, but didn't go much beyond that. Al Cooke had 152 film credits but his last appearance was in a 1933 short. Bryant Washburn had 377 credits, mostly bit parts through the 1940s. Marceline Day, the heroine in this film, had 64 credits but had a short-lived career of just 25 years. Nick Stuart, a Romanian born actor, had 52 credits – all small roles and bit parts through the 1950s.

Hedda Hopper's movie career was basically a lifetime of bit-parts (147 credits on IMDb, most of them forgettable), and no-one ever claimed she was a great actress, except in her other career as a gossip-columnist, where she could be highly convincing as a helpless little frilly female, to whom men would confide their secrets - only to find them plastered all over next morning's paper. (Spencer Tracy was so furious, he kicked her in the pants.) So this is one of the few opportunities to see her in a starring role, though at just 62 minutes, it's obviously a B-film and the low budget does show through.

When you hear that it's a story of mistaken identity, involving the theft of a priceless diamond, you can't help thinking of Wodehouse, who had a surprisingly strong influence on Hollywood, and that is the kind of light snack we're talking about. (Why it needed four writers is anybody's guess.)

The date of 1931 signals the first shock of the Depression, so the unremarkable footage of the rich at play would have provided much-needed escapism for hard-up viewers in a thousand small-town cinemas. There is topicality in Hopper's character losing everything in a stock-market gamble. And film-buffs will note the signs that we are just pre-Code, with a distinctly suggestive passage where a young man teaches the girl golf by reaching around her from behind.

This was a pretty foggy print, and the sound is a bit dim too. The climactic fight-scene is so fake and feeble, you can almost hear John Wayne sneering "Fight-scene? Heck, I thought it was a love-scene." But at least Hopper is looking her best - a distinguished beauty, however widely disliked.