Seven Sinners

Neil-117 is quite correct, the film makers were given permission by the Southern Railway to smash an old locomotive and carriages into a lorry on a disused branch line, hence the spectacular train crash.

I think his other comments are a little unfair. The film is taken from a play called 'The Wrecker' by Arnold Ridley (who also wrote 'The Ghost Train' and later became Private Godfrey in 'Dad's Army'). The whole point of the plot is that a serial murderer is staging train crashes to disguise his crimes.

Of course the film is dated but it's good, well-paced entertainment. If you enjoy Hitchcock's British thrillers (especially 'The Lady Vanishes', also a Launder and Gilliatt screenplay) you'll like this one.

American detective Edmund Lowe is traveling in Europe. He falls in with love interest Constance Cummings, and the two get tangled up in a mystery involving some train wrecks, a dead man, and a peace organization.

I was struck by the numerous plot elements and situations that Hitchcock had and would use. A comparison and listing of them would be the sort of thing that some one might undertake in search of, if not a thesis, then a good grade on a paper in a film course. Many of these similarities, I believe, can be attributed to the writers of this movie: Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder have the primary screenplay credits.

There's also a great train crash sequence lifted from the out-takes of 1929's The Wrecker. Over all it's a fine movie, even if it lacks the visual flair and mordant humor that Hitchcock would have given it.

American stars Edmund Lowe and Constance Cummings went over to Great Britain to film this Hitchcock like mystery thriller in 1936. Lowe went back to the USA, but Ms. Cummings stayed in Great Britain where she resided for the rest of her career.

Lowe is a private detective and Cummings works for an insurance company and both are trying to find a killer whose method of homicide is to either wreck trains to kill somebody or to cause a wreck to hide the body of someone he's already killed.

In a manner like Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint from North By Northwest, Lowe and Cummings exchange some very witty dialog. Other Hitchcock pictures that you will see elements of here in Seven Sinners are The Thirty Nine Steps, The Lady Vanishes, and Foreign Correspondent.

This wrecker is a pretty clever guy and it is only in the final minutes that our intrepid heroes realize who it is. And I don't think the audience will realize it either.

All that's missing is Alfred Hitchcock's portly cameo.

Although Arnold Ridley is synonymous with playing bumbling old Private Godfrey in DAD'S ARMY, in the 20s and 30s he was a reasonably successful playwright writing dashing adventure stories such as this.

This is a splendid, spiffing, old style rip-roaring mystery thriller very much in the Bulldog Drummond tradition of 'boys own adventures' which were so popular in the inter-war years. It seems like about half of all English plays, books and films featured a dashing slightly eccentric hero solving crimes or saving the honour of the Empire.

The dashing debonair hero in this however is neither that dashing nor that debonair nor indeed that heroic. He's prolific American B-movie actor, Edmund Lowe - very capable but was too inconspicuous to ever be a real star. Paired with fellow American 'also ran' Constance Cummings we've not got the classic eternal screen partnership but they do have enough chemistry to fully engage us.

They're no Bogart and Bacall but they're fine enough in these well written roles and being American makes this feel a little less provincial than some 30s English films but in this instance, it's not the stars which make you want to watch it, it's the story and the witty script - the first collaboration of the soon to be legendary partnership of Gilliat and Launder. The direction is also pretty snappy - Albert de Courville was clearly very, very heavily influenced by his more famous stablemate at Gaumont-British, Alfred Hitchcock.

It's also a very classy production - Gaumont-British were famously over optimistic in their bookkeeping so were prone to splash the cash at projects - even if they didn't quite have it! Not ideal for the future financial security of Isidore Ostrer's studio but good for us viewers, all these years later.

Albert de Courville was never a director of the highest pedigree so why two reasonably established American stars like Edmund Lowe and Constance Cummings should cross the Atlantic to do this comedy in Great Britain remains an open question. I was born 21 years after SEVEN SINNERS came out and, unsurprisingly, I have no idea, though from what I have read and heard both Lowe and Cummings had a penchant for comedy.

And comedy they do get here, and along Hitchcock lines to boot! Mind, Hitch had only just come into public recognition with the 39 STEPS, he had not yet done THE LADY VANISHES, let alone cross the Atlantic in the other direction to build his fame and fortune.

In my humble view, a screenplay penned by Gilliat and Launder is a guarantee of high quality - and I was not disappointed. This is a quirky, clever, sharp dialogue script that serves both the the American and British spirit in the film.

Cinematography by Mutz Greenbaum (never heard of this fella, was he German?) is competent, nothing more than that. What elevates SEVEN SINNERS is the superb sense of fun together conveyed by Lowe and Cummings... and the twists in the story also had me riveted!

Definitely worth watching, especially if you can get a good copy. 8/10.