The Girl in the Pullman

Fast-paced romantic comedy about a nerve doctor (Harrison Ford) who specializes in quack type treatments such as the "electric cabinet" to treat his victims, um I mean patients. The doctor has a fiancée - he also has an ex-wife (Marie Prevost). When the ex-wife arrives at his office unexpectedly, he escapes by meeting up with his fiancée and her mother at a local hotel for lunch. But the ex-wife ends up there too - in fact, she ends up everywhere the doctor ends up it seems. Chasing him, giving him flirty looks, stalking him - what will the doctor do? He decides to escape by train and marry the fiancée, but what he doesn't know is his divorce from his previous marriage will not be final for 24 hours. His ex-wife then sets out to get herself on the train and stop the marriage before her ex becomes a bigamist!

This film is a fun farce - what I would call a real comedy of errors, with lots of mix-ups involving our doctor, the ex-wife, the fiancée, her mother, and an ex-boyfriend of the fiancée (amusingly played by Franklin Pangborn) who shows up aboard the train too. I found this film to be quite amusing, especially some of the scenes on the train, including a lot of funny stuff involving two sets of "brides and grooms" and a confused porter, plus a hair-raising runaway train scene filmed on location on a real rail line through a desert rocky mountain pass. Harrison Ford is absolutely adorable in this, I just love him - one of my favorite silent era stars, especially handsome and charming in this film. Marie Prevost is good here too - cute and funny. The two of them specialized in these sort of light romantic comedies, paired together in similar films to this a number of times. A fun romp.

While Harrison Ford does a great support job as the romantic lead in Rubber Tires, the fifth film he made in 1927, The Girl in the Pullman, finds him in full comedic flight. In fact his material is so amusing and his flabbergasted reactions so hilarious that he easily steals the picture from its nominal star, the tragic Marie Prevost, who is further out-classed, alas, by an inspired support cast led by Franklin Pangborn, Kathryn McGuire, Ethel Wales and Harry Myers. Even Heinie Conklin (in black-face) enjoys some sterling moments. Of course, for railroad buffs, the movie is an absolute must, but for all who thrill to a quick-paced, stylishly directed (by Erle C. Kenton) romantic comedy, The Girl is a howl.