Edgar Wallace: Das mysteriöse Schiff

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.

Professor Grimson invents a device which can power a liner by remote control. Obviously enemy spies would love to get ahold of the device and send an agent to mix among the various vacationers unnoticed while he or she sabotaged the ship. The inventor is strangled and the crew must wait until the steering experiment is proven a success before the saboteur strikes, and what has this all to do with the ship's captain, Holling taking ill right before the ship is to depart. Very shoddy script and direction send this one to Davy Jones locker. The first 45 minutes is describing parts of the mechanism, then introducing the passengers and watching them mingle with each other before anything remotely interesting happens at the end, which last about three minutes, and seems so out of place with the pace of the earlier footage. Not good, even by Monogram standards. Zeffie Tilbury is annoying as the old lady looking for romance. Only plus for this film for me, was that, as always, Astrid Allwyn looked cute as a button. Edwin Maxwell and Gustav Von Seyffertitz lend a sinister presence. Rating- 3.

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.

And that is saying something for these mysteries from the 30s that usually have plots that are so muddled that you are constantly having to rewind to figure out what is going on.

Though Mr. Beery is at the top of the cast list, his onscreen time is minimal - opening and closing scenes. The rest of the cast split the screen time about evenly.

A ship's Captain is relieved of duty for medical reasons. His first officer takes over as Captain while the ship carries out an experiment in remote control by use of special equipment previously installed. A remote land base will take over when in open waters.

Though it appears as if this ship is a passenger cruise liner with many people boarding and waving off with streamers as it leaves dock, it is depicted as a cargo ship as it exits the harbor. The story brings only a few passengers to our attention as it unravels. Mostly it's the Captain(s), crew, and an investigator - along with some short scenes of an unnamed enemy group attempting to sieze control of the ship by means of their own remote system.

There are no notable performances or personalities just an espionage/murder-mystery which reveals itself nicely leaving no loose ends.

The most interesting scenes were those of the experimental equipment. They made noises like those in Henry Frankenstein's laboratory - vaguely resembled them visually. Popping, crackling, buzzing. Also, the iPad-like message transmitter, by which you write your message in handwriting script using a stylus - it appears nearly instantly onscreen at the receiver's end.

This is the kind of low rent movie Monogram was justifiably famous for when they weren't making no budget westerns. Secret agents, secret passages, etc.

This one has to do with a government project to control ships at sea with a radio control device called S505. In order to test the device, the scientific team installs it in a cruise ship with the cooperation of the captain and his staff. This was 1934 and we didn't actually have an enemy, so Monogram created a "foreign power" as the antagonist, and installed a couple of agents aboard the ship to steal the main component of the device and sabotage the experiment. We spend the rest of the picture trying to figure out who is who - and there really are secret passages.

Monogram, as was their practice, cast this picture with fading stars and familiar character actors. This effort stars Noah Beery although he only shows up at the beginning and end of the show. The real "star" is Edwin Maxwell, supported by George Cleveland and Gustav Von Seyffertitz. You get the picture.

I won't go any further into the story. It is a pretty formulaic spy yarn you could find on any double bill in any cheap theater back in the old days. But there are those of us that really love them. In fact, although I live in New Mexico, I recently made a pilgrimage to Hollywood. Not for the usual reasons, but to track back the homes and locations of my favorite old time actors and the locations of all those Poverty Row studios of the day. I actually found the original office address of Monogram at the wrong end of Sunset Blvd. I'm afraid most devotees would be disappointed to find that the actual address is occupied by a take out chicken joint. The sound stages across the street are now occupied by what appears to be a television station. I didn't care. I was standing on hallowed ground. I could imagine "The Duke", (whose ranch location I also visited in Encino) driving through the gate in his Chrysler Phantom.

The movie has a predictable ending, but the trip there is still entertaining. I have a brother who probably wouldn't appreciate it because it doesn't have a message, it doesn't have a basso thematic orchestration with all the bells and gongs, and it doesn't excite the viewer with sweeping visual images. But for the rest of us peasants, it rounds out the weekend just like grilled bratwurst, potato salad and beer.