Bombay Mail

What a surprise this film was! Enjoyable throughout. All production work is very good. That musical score is excellent. Rarely shown because of its age and because "it's a Universal Picture". Deserves a revival on late night TV.

I was trying to make a clever title and riff on Agatha Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express", but then I learned that the Bombay Mail was a famous train in its own right (actually, I didn't know it was a train!).

Nevertheless, "Bombay Mail" was a pleasant surprise and a very good murder mystery, and it remained a mystery right up to the end. There are lots of suspects to choose from, just as in Christie's novel, although "Bombay Mail" was published before it. Universal, the horror movie capital of Hollywood, was trying to cash in on the spate of mystery films so popular in the early 30's. They assembled a formidable cast of 'B' actors, including Edmund Lowe in the lead as Inspector Dyke, Onslow Stevens, Hedda Hopper and Ralph Forbes.

"Bombay Mail" benefits from brisk pacing which makes the 70 minutes seem even quicker, and from a first-class storyline and script. It takes place almost entirely on the train but does not seem stage-bound or claustrophobic, a tribute to the directorial skill of Edwin Marin. The picture is rarely shown these days after a run on TV in the 50's. It was shown on a newly-restored 35mm print at Capitolfest 2011, Rome, N.Y.

In India, a police inspector investigates a murder that took place on a train between Calcutta and Bombay.

A cast of odd suspects, especially with one of them keeping a cobra in his bag, a rather stern yet smug detective(a role Edmund Lowe can do in his sleep, though he's a little unlikeable here) and a orientalist India with yogis, sahibs, trains and beggars are some of the things on offer - it's a strong mystery that doesn't allow long unnecessary discourse to spoil the rather compact plot. It's quite focused and gripping, even complex, and the set-up and characters are well established before the hero enters the scene. Edmund Lowe appears fifteen minutes in.

This is a fast-paced, richly-detailed murder mystery set aboard the titular train route which bisects India from Calcutta to Bombay (and is mandated to always be on time, notwithstanding minor details like multiple murders). Although the film comes from Universal Studios' B-movie mill, it more precisely resembles British thrillers of the era -- not very smooth or stylish, but with plenty of atmospheric vignettes, florid dialog and witty asides.

The writers certainly take advantage of the politically charged setting, cleverly working local customs and rituals into the plot, and even some local wildlife in one striking sequence. The cast of suspects is an exotic melange -- a maharajah, a Gandhi-like pundit, a French chemist researching cobra venom, a Russian opera singer (or is she a Canadian courtesan?), and for pointed comedy relief, a bathroom fixtures salesman from Old Blighty. Even though it's set-bound, the reliable director Edwin L Marin keeps the camera moving from place to place, with plenty of cutaways to the outside landscape for convincing local color. And there's always a suspicious character or two eavesdropping or plotting in the shadows.

Unless you're a die-hard mystery buff, you may not be able to keep all the plot threads untangled, but the "gather up all the suspects" finale is still a success. If you're a train buff, or love the lore of Britain's colonial days on the subcontinent, then this is a must-see.

...because the plot is quite complex. Since you know it's a murder mystery, you know someone is going to wind up dead, but prior to the murder it's not even obvious as to who that someone might be. A British governor of an Indian province is murdered on the "Bombay Mail", an express train in India. Edmund Lowe effortlessly plays Inspector Dyke, who comes aboard the train to sort out the suspects and solve the murder. There is quite the cast of characters too. You have a mysterious woman (Shirley Grey) who speaks with a Russian accent in the presence of some but not others, a large satchel that the owner keeps peeking into from time to time. The owner, by the way is an expert in toxicology and the governor was poisoned. There is the governor's widow (Hedda Hopper) who is seemingly lacking in hysterics or mourning but has a big bottle of cyanide in her compartment, and a man with a tobacco pouch (Onslow Stevens) that he carefully guards as though it contained something precious. Finally there is a Brahman in whose bathroom the body of the governor is found, but he claims to have been in a self-induced trance at the time of the murder through the time that the body was found. The Brahman just happens to be an activist against the British occupation of India.

Dyke gathers up his suspects and quarantines them in the train's private car where he has 30 hours to solve the crime before the train enters Bombay. In the process, we learn of the relationships and rivalries among the passengers that could have given them motives for murder. Probably the strangest thing about this film is that, even though the passengers are all supposed to be British, some speak with a British accent and some sound like Americans.

If you like romance in your crime dramas, that is definitely lacking in this one. There is the hint of a possible romantic development, but it is more of a friendship than anything else when the film ends.

Universal went bankrupt two years after this was made, and if they had made more films consistently as good as this one maybe they would have remained solvent. Highly recommended.