The Gold Express

A nice little B flic that moves along with pace. A collection of characters make for an interesting film, worth the time.

This is now available for showing on the BFI player.It is a very competently made B film.There is a gold shipment on a train which thieves want to get their hands on.Lots of suspicious characters to be seen.By the way there is prefatory note that such a robbery could never happen on a British train.A few years later there was the Great Train Robbery,which rather proved them wrong.

The Gold Express is another 'Orient Express' style movie where the action takes place in the claustrophobic confines of moving railway carriages.

A newspaper reporter (Vernon Gray) is sent to cover the movement of gold bullion on board an express train – on his wedding night! Of course his new bride (Ann Walford) accompanies him to make the female interest of the film.

There are the usual numerous sub-plots within the story, comedic and otherwise. The acting is quite good for non-mainstream actors in this short (~ 1 hour) romp.

Overall; only the British film industry could produce such a pleasant way to spend an hour of your life without having to think. --- 3.5/ 5

Ann Walford and Vernon Gray are on their honeymoon when Gray's editor calls and tells him that the authorities loading a lot of gold onto a train to head north, so get there for the scoop. So off they go on an eventful train ride that includes a poker game, Ivy St. Helier & May Hallat as two sisters who write blood-tingling thrillers under a pseudonym, and an attempt to steal the gold.

Sometimes it seems as if no one rode a train without six stories involved, but director Guy Ferguson keeps things chugging along in this eventful B movie. With Jill Melford, Bill Shine, Ben Williams, and Sam Kydd.

Even an inconsequential little potboiler like this, clocking in at under an hour and with obviously post-synced dialogue, is enhanced by the record it provides of the noble age of steam with occasional familiar faces in the cast (inevitably including Sam Kydd), handsome photography and an even more handsome femme fatale in the seductive form of Delphi Lawrence (looking like a character from something far weightier in an expensive-looking black outfit with a gun in her handbag). Veteran stage actress Ivy St. Helier is top-billed, but actually only plays the comic relief.