El expreso del oeste

"Sleepers West," originally titled "Sleepers East," is one of the most enjoyable of the seven Michael Shayne detective mysteries from Sol Wurtzel's B-picture unit at Fox. This entry, however, is not based on any of the scores of Shayne pulps written by Brett Halliday, but on a novel by Frederick Nebel, notable as the first star writer of the legendary BLACK MASK magazine in the 1920's. Although Nebel licensed his most famous character, Torchy Blaine, to the movies in the 1930's, he held Hollywood in contempt and avoided adapting any of his material to the screen.

The film's premise has Shayne covertly escorting a secret surprise witness to a high-profile San Francisco trial aboard a cross-country passenger train. While trying to keep her location and identity a secret, he also has to contend with sinister on-board forces that are trying to silence her. The setting of a sleeping car has traditionally been an intriguing background for thrillers from Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" to Sidney Lumet's "Murder on the Orient Express," and the restrictions of narrow dining cars and narrower sleeping berths, the incessantly repetitive sound of the train's mechanics, and the readily available supply of red herrings add an air of claustrophobic excitement to the proceedings.

If the film's plot of a secret witness threatened by sinister forces sounds familiar, it is because that entire premise was later borrowed without attribution for the highly-acclaimed 1952 Noir thriller, "The Narrow Margin" directed by Richard Fleischer. It was remade in 1990 with Gene Hackman under the same title and credited the '52 film as the source. Despite the fact that "Sleepers West" is largely ignored and forgotten, as is the entire Shayne series, one must wonder why it receives so little attention.

A possible explanation lies with Fox's conception of the Shayne persona. The original Halliday stories were largely ignored by the studio's screenwriters, and the tough, no-nonsense character of Shayne himself was reshaped for the wise-cracking, breezy style of actor Lloyd Nolan, who bears little resemblance to Halliday's hard-boiled gumshoe.

No matter. "Sleepers West" and the other series entries are great escapist fun, filled with sharply witty dialogue and some of Hollywood's most idiosyncratic character actors at their peak, including Mary Beth Hughes, George Chandler, Eddie Brophy, and, in possibly the best role of his lengthy career, Louis Jean Heydt. "Sleepers West" also gives significant screen time to some of best black comedians of Hollywood's Golden Age as Pullman porters. Those of you who remember and appreciate the unsung talents of Mantan Moreland, Ben Carter (Moreland's old nightclub partner), Fred "Snowflake" Toones, and Sam "Deacon" McDaniel are in for an enjoyable 74 minutes.

For the first 40 minutes of Sleepers West, one of the Michael Shayne quickie B movies starring Lloyd Nolan, I thought we might be in the middle of tense Narrow Margin territory. Mike Shayne is hiding a secret witness on a train barreling through the night between Denver and a high profile trial in San Francisco. Her testimony can prove the innocence of a man framed for a murder...a murder that involves some very powerful people who want the case closed fast and permanently. And on that train is a killer determined to identify the witness and stop her from testifying. That's not all. Also aboard is a smart, shrewd and sexy newspaper reporter, Kay Bentley (Lynn Bari), an old romance of Mike's who is determined to find Mike's witness and get a scoop. Then there's the tall guy with a suitcase full of cash who might just be a poor shrump...or a killer, too. If that's not enough for Mike, his witness, Helen Carlson (Mary Beth Hughes), is a lush piece of frosting who enjoys a drink, has lazy eyes and lips as plump as Angelina Jolie's collagen injections.

If Sleepers West, a great, odd-sounding title, settles down to standard B movie fare toward the end, the ride at least is a lot of fun. Lloyd Nolan remains the reason to see this comedy/ mystery. Lynn Bari adds style and sexiness and has a great voice. She was a good actress who could handle comedy, drama, weepies or romance. Over a long career, she'd shrug and do the movies she was offered, and never was able to break out of the B's.

Blue, White and Perfect (1942), directed by Herbert I. Leeds, is the fourth and last in the Michael Shayne Mysteries - Volume I. In some ways, it's the best of the four. Once again we have an economical set, this time on an ocean liner steaming from Los Angeles to Honolulu. There's espionage involving industrial diamonds, murder, fist fights and a nice near- drowning in a flooding ship's compartment. The story is as complicated than the other three were, but it hold ups for the length of the movie. In this one, the ruthless Mr. Big is well disguised until the end. The confined quarters of the ship means there are lots of scrambles up and down stairways and people following each other at night in the halls. Lloyd Nolan continues his pitch-perfect portrayal of Shayne as cocky, funny, tough when he has to be and veering closely, but not close enough, toward getting married. Shayne's escape from marriage this time is cleverly handled by a corpse with a knife in its back.

Don't blame yourself if you get confused over some of the characters in these films. Mary Beth Hughes appears in three of them, Helene Reynolds in two and Marjorie Weaver in two. And they're all in leading roles never playing the same characters. Lloyd Nolan must have been as confused as Mike Shayne sometimes appears to be. And let's hear it for double- breasted suits. That's what Shayne always wears, and they look good on him.

This mystery is fun. It is loaded with lots of suspects. Also, some slimy characters. A bright spot is having been Ben Carter and Mantan Moreland which livens up the movie. They should have had more screen time to-gether. It is nice to see Mary Beth Hughes. She was very attractive and had natural talent.

In this entry in the Michael Shayne series, Lloyd Nolan gets the job of escorting Mary Beth Hughes to San Francisco on the sleeper train from New York. Hughes is beautiful but most uncooperative. She's a key defense witness in a murder trial, but all the restrictions Shayne has placed on her is cramping her style. Hughes is a most sociable girl.

Also on the train is Lynn Bari an old girlfriend of Shayne's who's a Lois Lane like reporter. She's got a new fiance Don Douglas who's from San Francisco and is a rising mover and shaker there.

Whether Hughes believes it or not there are people who want her to complete the journey and will go to any lengths to see it doesn't happen. There's a nice cast of familiar character players and the trick is to see which are the good and the bad guys.

Some nice snappy patter dialog is a must for this kind of film and it has it with an actor that can deliver it. Lloyd Nolan in his long career never gave a bad performance, even if the film was a stinker he never was. He fit so well in the role of Michael Shayne.

There are also a few side plots in this B film unusual for a movie not in the A list category. This one will make you a fan of Michael Shayne and Lloyd Nolan.

'Sleepers West' has a complicated pedigree. In the early '30s, pulp-magazine novelist Frederick Nebel wrote a detective story called 'Sleepers EAST'. The Fox studio bought the rights and filmed this in 1934, but the film 'Sleepers East' is spoilt by some boring romantic elements that dilute the mystery plot. In 1941, Fox remade the story ... changing the plot to make this film an appropriate entry in their 'Mike Shayne' series. They also retitled it 'Sleepers WEST'. The directional change is appropriate to a private-eye story, as westward is the most noir-ish direction: the progression towards sunset ... and death. (Compare this with Rodgers and Hart's 'All Points West', in which the main character dies at the end ... or Lucille Fletcher's radio script and Twilight Zone episode 'The Hitch-Hiker', in which Death and his victim are both heading west on the highway.)

'Sleepers West' is a nice taut little B-picture, a splendid example of those second-feature low-budgeters that Hollywood did so well in the great studio era. Even the film's title pleasingly evokes the 1940s, when sleeping-cars ('sleepers') on American railway trains were commonplace. (On a British railway, 'sleepers' are the wooden ties that hold up the rails.) Movies that take place aboard moving railway trains are always enjoyable: the characters are hurtling along at top speed even if the plot goes off the rails.

Lloyd Nolan had a mug that usually cast him as criminals, but here he's perfect as Mike Shayne, the hard-bitten yet incorruptible private eye. Shayne is escorting Helen Carlson from Denver to San Francisco, where she's to testify in court. Helen's testimony will free a man who's been falsely convicted of murder ... but her testimony will also expose a powerful corrupt politician. So, of course the train to Frisco is chock-full of passengers who want to kill Helen. As if Shayne hasn't enough troubles, there's also one of those stereotypical 1940s 'girl reporter' types (well-played by the vivacious Lynn Bari), who keeps getting in Shayne's way at inconvenient moments.

There are lots of those great supporting roles that nostalgic movie-goers expect in 1940s films like this: I especially enjoyed the great Edward Brophy and the underrated (but prolific) character actor Harry Hayden. Unfortunately, another typical trait of 1940s Hollywood movies makes an unwelcome appearance here: the gratuitous Negro stereotype. In the days of Pullman sleeping-cars, there was a well-organised union of Pullman porters: all of them African-American men. It makes perfect sense that a black actor is cast as the porter in 'Sleepers West'. Regrettably, the role is played by Ben Carter: a plump, simpering, pop-eyed, high-pitched, effeminate black man whom I always find painful to watch on screen. Ben Carter's character portrayals were consistently much more annoying (and possibly more racist) than those of the notorious Stepin Fetchit ... though never quite so annoying as those of Edgar Connor, possibly the most offensive Negro actor in the (no pun intended) dark days of Hollywood stereotypes. Couldn't the railway porter in this movie have been depicted as an ordinary human being: a black man just trying to make an honest living, like pretty much everyone else?

Despite that one cavil, I eagerly rate 'Sleepers West' 9 points out of 10. They don't make 'em like this any more!