The Hurricane Express

"The Hurricane Express" was one of three serials that John Wayne made for Nat Levine and Mascot Pictures after leaving Columbia Pictures following a run-in with mogul Harry Cohn over the affections of a young starlet.

The Mascot serials were always fast paced and full of action and this one is no exception. The story revolves around a mysterious character named "The Wrecker" who is bent on destroying the L & R Railroad. He causes the wreck of the Hurricane Express in which engineer Jim Baker (J. Farrell MacDonald) is killed. His son Larry (Wayne), an airline pilot vows to avenge his father's death. And that's basically it.

Wayne goes through the rest of the serial trying to identify "The Wrecker" and bring him to justice. Is the villain Edwards (Tully Marshall), the General Manager of the railroad; Stevens (Conway Tearle) the railroad attorney; Walter Grey (Lloyd Whitlock) the head of the airline; Stratton (Edmund Breese) an escaped convict who claims to have been set up by the railroad; Jordan (Matthew Betz) an engineer who was fired and has vowed revenge or is it Carlson (Alan Bridge) a station agent?

Aiding Baker is the lovely Gloria Martin (Shirley Grey) who turns out to be Stratton's daughter. Appearing as "The Wrecker's" henchmen are Ernie Adams, Charlie King, Glenn Strange and Al Ferguson. Complicating matters is the fact that "The Wrecker" can impersonate anybody by donning a life like mask of that person. Never mind that he can also apparently assume their physical characteristics and clothing as well.

After 12 chapters, a number of false leads and red herrings "The Wrecker" turns out to be.......wait, no, no...Bam! Bam!..aaaargh!

John Wayne was quite young and very athletic at the time this serial was made and can be seen clearly performing many of his own stunts. The winsome Grey was also at Columbia at the same time as Wayne and even appeared in a picture or two with him. I wonder..hmmmm.

These old serials also provide a snapshot of the times. I particularly enjoyed seeing the old cars, trains and planes. A bit dated but a nevertheless enjoyable piece of nostalgia.

Of course the script is highly improbable and the acting is rather overwrought, but this was a serial, which thankfully has been condensed into about 80 minutes. In those eighty minutes are some truly remarkable shots of steam trains, train yards, a roundhouse, train stations, the cabs of locomotives and the interiors of passenger cars. The producers obviously sought to save money on set construction by using actual locations, and their economy is our gain. For good measure, there is also some considerable footage of the airplanes and air fields of the time, including the interior of a passenger airplane. Early John Wayne is always welcome, but this film has some extremely worthwhile footage and locations. And look for a scene about 25 minutes into the film, where an uncredited Yakima Canutt is duplicated in a special effects shot.

John Wayne is "Larry", an airline pilot who only just manages to land his plane in a field and rush to the scene of a railway accident in which his father, the driver, has perished. He is livid and when he discovers that this was sabotage, he determines to track down the culprit. Meantime we discover just who is behind these attacks - but that he has quite a legitimate axe to grind against an all-conquering railroad that rode rough shod over people and townships alike during it's construction. There's no doubt as to the conclusion of this feature film - a condensed version that is based around the first few and the last few parts of a twelve part serialisation, and it is largely filmed as if it were a silent movie with a sound effects disc running efficiently now and again in the background to liven it up. What dialogue there is, is delivered in a seriously stilted fashion suggesting the actors were reading cue cards just out of shot and so isn't the most natural. The photography is basic, but it's also quite exciting at times when it's on the trains and we are whizzing around at speed. I don't think this abridged version is particularly good nor memorable but I do reckon it could have made for quite an entertaining week-to-week serial with cliffhanger endings each time. It's watchable as a piece of low-budget cinema nostalgia - it illustrates gently that just as the plane is overtaking the train, sound movies are overtaking the silent ones.

In a random moment to homage a few actor's who attended the 'Save the Rose Theatre' spectacular street event in1989, I watched a classic from the '40's featuring Roy Roger's, upon same compilation DVD, there's an R. Scott feature but also the trimmed serial of Hurricane Express.

If there's a mystery worth pursuing purely for cultural nostalgia it has to be how the many earliest B & W serial westerns, turned a completely average actor, into the phenomenon that was 'John Wayne'. Something that even the many tribute documentarys have barely scratched the surface.

This serial has strong historical aspects in many of its vehicular scenes that rivals the 'Keystone Cops' or 'Charlie Chaplin' features, its weakness is from the mutilation that condensed editting of 12 episodes does to create a re-releasable movie.

Production values of the original are clearly shown to emphasise the stock single placement of camera with minimal focus or extra lighting. Giving the film, more a variety of grey hues to give sense of depth, completely inadequate to enable more emotive range for the cast.

Fortunately, what remains of its convoluted plot is more that enough to pursue 'Action', and this has more old-style brawls and chase scenes than you'll find in any modern feature.

In relative comparison, the closest series in modern terms of storyline and effects to this would be 'Mission Impossible' in either '60's or Cruise control era's.

As for resolving the two mysteries?

Well there's the Mascott, itself in one scene only, sadly the Wayne factor appear to have been removed in the trimming, as dramatically even the heroine gets enough involvement to be strongly regarded a bonus for actress Shirley Grey, who survived the switch to colour features extending career in acting by 30+ roles.

One caveat I have to give this particular review. I saw an abbreviated 80 minute version of this serial which was almost unintelligible to follow. Not that I think the full length version would have put The Hurricane Express right up in cinematic history with Gone With the Wind.

John Wayne did three serials for Mascot and this particular one must have been edited down for a feature length movie to take advantage of his growing popularity in the Forties. The plot such as it is involves John Wayne as the son of engineer J. Farrell MacDonald who is killed in a planned train wreck.

The mysterious guy doing all these wrecks is someone appropriately called The Wrecker. He's got one interesting gimmick, he wears incredibly life like masks of all the other folks that are suspected of being the Wrecker. Fools everybody of course until the Duke catches on.

If this version of The Hurricane Express came out in the late Forties, what must John Wayne have thought when such things as Red River, Fort Apache, etc. were being released? The Duke must have shuddered.