The Return of Casey Jones

Jackie Searl idolizes Casey Jones. When he grows up to become Charles Starrett, he becomes a railroad engineer too. He's about to enlist in the Army -- the Great War has come to America -- but his mother has an attack, and the doctor says if he goes overseas, she'll die. Then, one night, running his train, the fluid in the brake line fails. He orders his fireman to jump, and heads onto the engine to fix it, but gets knocked off. The train crashes, and everyone says he's a coward except for George "Not Gabby Yet" Hayes, who was Casey Jones fireman.

It's a surprisingly well put together Poverty Row movie, even though it seems a trifle slow throughout its short length of 67 minutes. Perhaps it is the inevitable course of the plot, with the audience waiting for the same sort of disaster to threaten Starret again, so he can prove his bravery. Perhaps it's the lack of a score, something even the Majors didn't have consistently at this point. There are no surprises here, but a good cast, including Robert Elliott and Theodore Lorch help a lot.

Poor quality picture, sound, and the editing has so many rough cuts and jumps. Clearly in need of a restoration, but the film is so iffy, i'm sure that won't happen. Imdb says this is a sixty seven minute shortie, but the version on roku is only sixty two minutes. When they need to get a doctor somewhere fast, they insist that casey jones bring the train and the doctor to the destination. But an accident along the way throws the train off the tracks, and some are killed. Several years later, there's another wreck, but this time, jimmy walks away, almost intact, but with numerous injuries. Because of lies told by co-workers, jimmy is called a coward for violating companies standards. Will the truth about all this ever come out? The story is basically sound, which pretty much starts at the halfway mark. But the editing and the quality make it so hard to watch. Directed by j mccarthy, for monogram. The opening screens credit the writer as "the railroad stories novelette by john johns".