Mystery Liner

Professor Grimson invents a device which can power a liner by remote control. Obviously enemy spies would love to get ahold of the device and send an agent to mix among the various vacationers unnoticed while he or she sabotaged the ship. The inventor is strangled and the crew must wait until the steering experiment is proven a success before the saboteur strikes, and what has this all to do with the ship's captain, Holling taking ill right before the ship is to depart. Very shoddy script and direction send this one to Davy Jones locker. The first 45 minutes is describing parts of the mechanism, then introducing the passengers and watching them mingle with each other before anything remotely interesting happens at the end, which last about three minutes, and seems so out of place with the pace of the earlier footage. Not good, even by Monogram standards. Zeffie Tilbury is annoying as the old lady looking for romance. Only plus for this film for me, was that, as always, Astrid Allwyn looked cute as a button. Edwin Maxwell and Gustav Von Seyffertitz lend a sinister presence. Rating- 3.

Talky mystery that never really gels. Events concern an ocean liner being tested for remote control. Since a successful test will revolutionize warships and naval warfare, the test is being done in secret. Nonetheless, an unnamed foreign power gets wind of the experiment and gets an undercover agent aboard. But which of the many characters is it, and how many will be murdered before the end.

Cheapo Monogram is constrained to film inside cramped ship-board sets, though oddly we never see the supposed water below. And since there's little action or pacing, the narrative fails to crystallize plot potential. Events tend to meander rather than build. I suspect the problem lies with trying to cram too much of the Wallace novel onto the screen On the other hand, the reveal did surprise me, while showing a good twist on the usual. Too bad that imagination didn't extend to directing and lighting.

Though Beery headlines--probably for marquee reasons--he has little screen time. Instead, rotund Maxwell carries the plot as a self-appointed sleuth. I guess the aged Tilbury is supposed to be comedy relief, likely because lanky Jerry Stewart proves so inept. Too bad her over-acting hits more of a sour note than a funny bone.

Anyway, I didn't dislike the results as much as many others. Still, it's an easily forgettable entry among that decade's slew of cheap whodunnits.

MYSTERY LINER (1934)

* 1/2 (out of four)

The ship is sailing the ocean when bodies begin to pile up. Is it a stowaway? The captain? Another member? The biggest mystery is trying to figure a way to stay awake. Typical overly talkative Monogram film that tries to be mysterious but forgets to be interesting. Monogram was always smart by releasing films very short (usually under 65 minutes) but this film really doesn't have a thing going for it. By the time the movie is over it feels like a grade D film.

Available on DVD through various PD companies.

On board this ritzy passenger liner, the ship's control room communicates with a roomful of scientists on shore using a cool two-way Etch-a-sketch style device: You scrawl out your message on a picture screen, and at the other end they see your handwritten message appear just as you wrote it. Pretty neat! Unfortunately, that's probably the most interesting thing about the whole movie.

This B suspense picture features a broad array of standard characters—embattled veteran captain with mysterious health issues (Noah Beery), all-business doctor, pretty blond nurse (Astrid Allwyn) who is being pursued by a rival pair of ship's officers, a firecracker of an old lady who wants to party, a tall and thin mystery traveler (Gustav von Seyffertitz), and a military man (Edwin Maxwell) who quickly appoints himself chief investigator when mysterious events kick in.

The mystery centers around a high tech invention called S-505, which is apparently a tube that will enable a ship to be steered and controlled remotely. The invention is ready to be tested—but look out! because a sinister foreign power is very interested in the device and may have spies aboard.

It all adds up to intrigue, deceit, and even murder….but alas, the actors and plot are sadly defeated by slow pacing, obvious dialog, and just a generally muddled presentation of the whole story. Too bad, because there is a nifty story buried in there somewhere.

This is the kind of low rent movie Monogram was justifiably famous for when they weren't making no budget westerns. Secret agents, secret passages, etc.

This one has to do with a government project to control ships at sea with a radio control device called S505. In order to test the device, the scientific team installs it in a cruise ship with the cooperation of the captain and his staff. This was 1934 and we didn't actually have an enemy, so Monogram created a "foreign power" as the antagonist, and installed a couple of agents aboard the ship to steal the main component of the device and sabotage the experiment. We spend the rest of the picture trying to figure out who is who - and there really are secret passages.

Monogram, as was their practice, cast this picture with fading stars and familiar character actors. This effort stars Noah Beery although he only shows up at the beginning and end of the show. The real "star" is Edwin Maxwell, supported by George Cleveland and Gustav Von Seyffertitz. You get the picture.

I won't go any further into the story. It is a pretty formulaic spy yarn you could find on any double bill in any cheap theater back in the old days. But there are those of us that really love them. In fact, although I live in New Mexico, I recently made a pilgrimage to Hollywood. Not for the usual reasons, but to track back the homes and locations of my favorite old time actors and the locations of all those Poverty Row studios of the day. I actually found the original office address of Monogram at the wrong end of Sunset Blvd. I'm afraid most devotees would be disappointed to find that the actual address is occupied by a take out chicken joint. The sound stages across the street are now occupied by what appears to be a television station. I didn't care. I was standing on hallowed ground. I could imagine "The Duke", (whose ranch location I also visited in Encino) driving through the gate in his Chrysler Phantom.

The movie has a predictable ending, but the trip there is still entertaining. I have a brother who probably wouldn't appreciate it because it doesn't have a message, it doesn't have a basso thematic orchestration with all the bells and gongs, and it doesn't excite the viewer with sweeping visual images. But for the rest of us peasants, it rounds out the weekend just like grilled bratwurst, potato salad and beer.