Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It

Let me join other reviewers in praising this fast-paced and witty thriller featuring strong characters.

Scotland Yard, rather than a hive of ruthless efficiency, is populated by posturing egomaniacs, yet Gordon Harker and Alastair Sim get their man (and his very glamorous sidekick) in the end. While their time in the Army may drag a bit nowadays, then it was part of the nation's collective experience and a suitable case for affectionate satire. Once our pair are on the trail of the spies, things move faster and the other settings of creepy dentist's house, eccentric boarding school, country hotel and final mail train are all well evoked.

Enjoyable double entendre abounds whenever Sim encounters a good-looking woman. My favourite is Phyllis Calvert as the dentist's apparent widow, who promises him she will hide nothing as she takes off her cloak and puts her décolletage under his nose. When shortly after that she disappears with the contents of the murdered dentist's safe, it is handy for her that Sim had previously disabled the alarm.

So many characters to applaud that I'll just give a special mention to Raymond Huntly for relentless sneering as principal villain: it takes a real professional to keep it up.

Like the other films in the Hornleigh series this is breezy with a nice touch of humor. The plot has Hornleigh working for the British army to find out who has been pilfering army supplies. He finds this work beneath his talents and is glad to shift his interest to a case involving the radio transmission of messages by German spies in England. The radio transmission is sent from a different location each time and Hornleigh digs to finds out how they are doing it and who is behind it.

The joy of the film is the teaming of Harker and Sim. A first rate team from British film history.

This film, "Mail Train", is also known as "Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It". The Inspector (Gordon Harker) is a very talented but very serf-assured member of Scotland Yard. Through much of the film you doubt his competence (since he's so self-assured you can't but think he's a bumbler), but through the course of the film he proves himself to be a very capable and intelligent officer. He is assisted by Sergeant Bingham (Alastair Sim)--a more bumbling sidekick I cannot recall! The film begins with the two being assigned to a rather dull case involving tracking down missing supplies from the army--stuff that's gone missing and probably found its way to the black market. However, along the way the case diverges to a ring of so-called 'fifth columnists'--spies working for the Nazis. At this point in the film, Hornleigh uses his wits and through some good detective work is able to learn about an ingenious German method for smuggling information out of the country. About that time, bumbling Bingham is captured by the enemy and Hornleigh rises to the occasion--in a rousing ending to this exciting film.

"Mail Train" rather surprised me. At first, I wasn't all that impressed by the film but through the course of it, good writing, an excellent mystery and a nice blend of comedy (Sim) and action made this a very good WWII propaganda film. Very nice....I just hope I can find copies of the other two Hornleigh films Gordon Harker made.

Having never seen the other 'Inspector Hornleigh' flicks I was unsure what to expect here, which sure made it all the more exciting. Harker was splendid as the droll Hornleigh but definite kudos go to Sim, his side-kick Bingham, who blunders his way through to heroics each time. The plot is your average war-spy-drama - who is sending the secret code to the Germans and how are they doing it? - but this is easily one of the better of the genre. It was also fascinating to see sweet little Phyllis Calvert playing an out-and-out bad girl. It's a shame she didn't get to play more of the same type of role!

None of the three Inspector Hornleigh films have worn well at all; with their penny-pinching production values and unimaginative camera setups, they look at least a decade older than their actual age. This final entry might be a little more tolerable than the others; it has one or two amusing scenes, like when Inspector Hornleigh is impersonating a professor or when Sergeant Bingham is impersonating a dentist's assistant. Nonetheless, despite the involvement of one of the 1938 "Lady Vanishes" co-screenwriters, and even some train action at the very end, this film is in no way comparable to the Hitchcock classic. ** out of 4.