Seven Sinners

The Launder/Gilliat screenplay credit attracted my attention, but other than its many screwball elements, the British comedy/thriller "Seven Sinners" came up empty.

I can imagine a Depression Era audience enjoyhing its modicum of thrills (re: train crashes) and the goofy situations and dialogue, but the show appear doomed from such weak casting. I doubt if current filmmakers would be interested in this genre at all, but from a few decades back, a pleasant hit like "Silver Streak" points up the necessity of finding the proper stars to populate such frivolous nonsense.

Beyond the dynamite first teaming of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, the SS supporting cast is a who's who of talented players. No such luck in this 1936 SS, with Edmund Lowe tiresome in his hogging the screen but offering zero charm, while Constance Cummings is eminently forgettable and the various minor players a washout.

American detective Edmund Lowe is traveling in Europe. He falls in with love interest Constance Cummings, and the two get tangled up in a mystery involving some train wrecks, a dead man, and a peace organization.

I was struck by the numerous plot elements and situations that Hitchcock had and would use. A comparison and listing of them would be the sort of thing that some one might undertake in search of, if not a thesis, then a good grade on a paper in a film course. Many of these similarities, I believe, can be attributed to the writers of this movie: Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder have the primary screenplay credits.

There's also a great train crash sequence lifted from the out-takes of 1929's The Wrecker. Over all it's a fine movie, even if it lacks the visual flair and mordant humor that Hitchcock would have given it.

Neil-117 is quite correct, the film makers were given permission by the Southern Railway to smash an old locomotive and carriages into a lorry on a disused branch line, hence the spectacular train crash.

I think his other comments are a little unfair. The film is taken from a play called 'The Wrecker' by Arnold Ridley (who also wrote 'The Ghost Train' and later became Private Godfrey in 'Dad's Army'). The whole point of the plot is that a serial murderer is staging train crashes to disguise his crimes.

Of course the film is dated but it's good, well-paced entertainment. If you enjoy Hitchcock's British thrillers (especially 'The Lady Vanishes', also a Launder and Gilliatt screenplay) you'll like this one.

Mildly amusing scenario of US private detective and female insurance investigator battling for supremacy in solving a series of murders in Europe. Will they kiss and make up in the end? The bad guys are suitably sinister and new ones keep popping up just when you thought you had it all figured out. The script writer must have been short on inspiration as the same device of a train wreck is used no less than three times. But those action sequences are well filmed and I'd swear one of the crashing steam locomotives is the real thing.

American stars Edmund Lowe and Constance Cummings went over to Great Britain to film this Hitchcock like mystery thriller in 1936. Lowe went back to the USA, but Ms. Cummings stayed in Great Britain where she resided for the rest of her career.

Lowe is a private detective and Cummings works for an insurance company and both are trying to find a killer whose method of homicide is to either wreck trains to kill somebody or to cause a wreck to hide the body of someone he's already killed.

In a manner like Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint from North By Northwest, Lowe and Cummings exchange some very witty dialog. Other Hitchcock pictures that you will see elements of here in Seven Sinners are The Thirty Nine Steps, The Lady Vanishes, and Foreign Correspondent.

This wrecker is a pretty clever guy and it is only in the final minutes that our intrepid heroes realize who it is. And I don't think the audience will realize it either.

All that's missing is Alfred Hitchcock's portly cameo.