O Expresso de Bombaim

This little adventure yarn is set in India, which was also one of the settings for star Jon Hall's subsequent TV series, "Ramar of the Jungle." The actor who plays the crooked bartender in this movie would later play Ramar's British sidekick. In a more literary vein, I wonder if this picture was inspired by the novel "Bhowani Junction," which came out the same year. Like the novel, this movie is about terrorism in post-independence India, with a train being the engine of the plot (so to speak). And the main male character in the novel had the last name "Savage," while in this movie Hall plays an American diplomat named "Viking." Coincidence? (Anyway, as movie fans know, "Bhowani Junction" went on to become an Ava Gardner/Stewart Granger movie in 1956.) "Last Train from Bombay" is no epic, but it's full of action, thanks to the inept terrorists who are continually capturing Viking. They never tie him up or even lock him up, and he makes them pay dearly every time. He punches them and runs, and they wince with frustration as he gets away to fight another round. Their failure to learn from their mistakes is no doubt what saved India.

Some nasty Thuggees have some plans for the Last Train From Bombay, it's going to be blown up because a prominent Indian nawab is on the train and the terrorists are hoping to get a nice civil war going. If you're expecting Bhowani Junction from this Grade C foreign adventure film that never got closer to India than the studio back lot, you will be gravely disappointed.

After having seen Gunga Din and other such films about the British Raj, I thought the strangling cult of the Thuggees had been dealt with. Silly me.

Jon Hall is an American Foreign Service officer going to report for assignment in India to be a consul when he gets taken off the train after meeting up with Christine Larsen. She's the daughter of a British brigadier traveling with dear old dad in the places where he once ran things and now they're just tourists. She doesn't make the slightest attempt at a British accent.

After he leaves the train he goes to a hotel to meet up with an old OSS buddy from the late war, Douglas Kennedy who's now a mercenary for hire. Kennedy fakes his own death a la Harry Lime in The Third Man and meets up with Hall. The old demolition man from the OSS has been hired to blow up a train and he had to get his old buddy off the train when he heard he would be on it.

But then Kennedy is really killed and Hall becomes a suspect and he's on the run from the Indian police and the terrorists as he tries to stop the Last Train From Bombay before it reaches the place where the track is mined.

It's interesting, but not even remotely historically accurate because the various Indian princes in both India and what later became Pakistan were bought off one by one by Lord Mountbatten as part of the eventual British departure from India. With one exception, the guy running Kashmir and that's been a sore subject between both countries for decades now. In 1952 no one would care if some rich nawab got blown up in a train accident, he's just another rich guy and Hindu, Moslem, Parsee, Sikh, and Christian really couldn't have cared. Not to mention that the Thuggees are as relevant on the scene as our Ku Klux Klan.

But American ignorance about places that we had little or no dealing with in our past like India is what producers counted on in putting out films like Last Train From Bombay.

Poor Jon Hall though, he went on from this to Ramar of the Jungle and even acted with James Fairfax who played his South African guide in several episodes in this film. Fairfax has a brief role as a club bartender.

I've only one question, is this what our Secretary of State at the time who was Dean Acheson expect from our diplomatic and consular service?

This is a film that has resurfaced after 40 years of being stored somewhere. Unless one is a devoted film buff one will likely recognize no-one in the film. Even Jon Hall who made a big splash in 1937 in "Hurricane" is not easily recognized in this 1952 film.

It is a story of an American diplomat who uncovers a plot to kill an important Indian prince (when Indian princes mattered!) by blowing up his train. There are a couple of killings for which the diplomat is blamed, thus preventing him from approaching the police for help. There are a few twists and turns but the film is rather standard.

There are a number of incongruities in the film which will be noticed by many viewers - the film was quite obviously done inexpensively and it shows in the script and much of the scenery. It fits with Ronald Reagan's comment: "They didn't want it good. They wanted it Tuesday." Don't make a point of trying to see it, but if it's on and you want to pass 75 minutes it is probably entertaining enough.

Stock footage and brown-face actors

Someone had the bright idea of making a story set in India BUT they didn't have much of a budget. So, they used a few stock pieces of footage shot in India AND painted up a bunch of American actors to look 'Indian'...and sound like Americans! I care less that it's politically incorrect and more that it's just sloppy and stupid. And, speaking of sloppy and stupid, the film stars the down and out actor Jon Hall...who used to be something back in the early 1940s but who was pretty washed up by the 1950s. Additionally, his once good looks were pretty much gone by the time he made the movie.

Martin Viking (nice last name) is an American diplomat in India. However, he's also going to become a scapegoat for some conspiracy to kill an Indian government official. He also finds out these same people are planning on blowing up a train! So, Martin decides to investigate on his own to find out who is responsible...and stop them.

Despite all the cheap aspects of the production, is the film any good? Well, it's not terrible...not that this is a ringing endorsement. I think had the film had a decent budget and didn't take so many shortcuts, the story might have worked better.

This last gasp effort to resurrect Jon Hall's career has him as an American diplomat in India caught up in the usual web of intrigue and overwrought screen music. The script itself is a bit of a hodge podge of spy movies, ranging from KIM to SABOTEUR, filled with hearty Irish spies, Indians who wear turbans and so forth: very primitive visual clues, because this movie was not going to play the big houses in major cities.

Director Fred Sears can't really do that much with the entire proceedings. DP Henry Freulich takes a shot at doing something by shooting the exterior scenes to obtain a documentary movie look, but the result is frequently blurry, rather than immediate. All in all, a waste of everyone's time.