Pullman 12

A Little Spoiler - Every pre-code fan should catch this movie, "By Whose Hand?". It was a very entertaining and rare 65 minute classic movie that was shown on Turner Classic Movies. This movie is another example of pre-code greatness. Crime, Love, Betrayal, and Murder all takes place on a train ride. Slick and Smooth Ben Lyon plays Jimmy Hawley, a newspaper reporter who is always got his eye out for a story. He gets kissed accidentally by pretty Alice (Barbara Weeks) and because of that he follows her to California on a train where a big story evolves right before his eyes. The train ride has plenty of suspects with a shady past, a jewelry distributor (Kenneth Thomson), a gorgeous moll named Eileen (Ethel Kenyon), a criminal, a bitter man, and the wife of a criminal who's going to help her husband get even with the man who framed him who's on the train. The jewelry man is killed and the beautiful moll is suspected because of her being seen with him and because of her past, the bitter guy who the jewelry man fired is suspected of killing out of revenge. The convict and his wife are suspects too even Alice (Barbara Weeks). Ben Lyon plays detective and points out the guilty and innocent. I won't give all all the details in case some of you haven't seen it.

There is mention of dope cigarettes - weed - which was given to the man to fall asleep so he could be killed. There is also plenty of sexual innuendos that pre-code movies were known for. The newlywed couple was cute, especially, the blonde, little cutie. During the drama, the funny part is when the detective tells everyone to come out of their sleepers and he ask the newlywed couple what they were doing during the murder and the newlywed couple starts to blush and look guilty and giggles because they were having sex during the murder - they didn't say that but their face told it. That's what I like about pre-code, pre-code didn't have to be filthy and vulgar to be entertaining and sexy like movies today. Movies today should learn something from pre-code movies. This movie has everything and it's jam-packed for being just a 65 minute movie. That's what I love about pre-code, pre-code proved a movie doesn't have to be 2 hours long to be entertaining or to tell the story fully. There was a beginning, middle, and end, the pre-code movies get to the point without a lot of unnecessary parts which is good for an impatient person like me. Pre-code is entertaining all the way through. Please see this movie, I personally recommend it!

This often neglected programmer is filled with suspense and mayhem aboard a fast-moving train and well worth a watch, even though the acting is often overwrought, a holdover from the silent film days when histrionics were sometimes necessary to compensate for the lack of sound. Being an early sound production, the dialog too is often stilted. But the crisp photography, at times reminding the viewer of a Hitchcock picture, and apt direction more than make up for the movie's shortcomings. Sometimes as exciting as today's action hits, especially during the runaway train sequence at the end, "By Whose Hand?" proves a winner all the way.

Though Ben Lyon was a fine actor, he did much better as a second lead. He never had the charisma nor the looks to play top banana as he does in this film. The drunk played by Tom Dugan was probably a laugh riot to audiences in 1932 but by today's standards becomes a bit grating after a few minutes. Intended mainly for comic relief, the part should have been whittled down considerably. Otherwise, the casting is first rate with standout performances by the vivacious Barbara Weeks, the always delightful Dwight Frye, William V. Mong as a crotchety old man, and the versatile Nat Pendleton. The racial stereotyping that was rampant in Hollywood at the time is omnipresent, but if the viewer keeps an open mind this aspect is also tolerable.

The plot involves a hotshot reporter, Jimmy (Lyon), who takes a train ride to scoop a story on Chick Lewis (Frye), the man who plea-bargained with the police and is therefore the target of an escaped killer, Delmar(Pendleton), who stabs his victims. And there are two steak knives missing from the kitchen! Jimmy accidentally meets Alice (Weeks) and falls madly in love with her (who wouldn't!). All the while the locomotive speeds full throttle toward San Francisco.

On a runaway train, there's an escaped killer on his way to prison, a jeweler killed and his pieces missing, a dumb cop to try to figure out what's going on: good thing Ben Lyon, the best reporter in town is on the train!

It's a high speed mystery from Columbia which takes advantage of some good players, like Kenneth Thomson, Ethel Kenyon, Dwight Frye, and Nat Pendleton. Pendleton is far from his comic persona, and quite good as the killer. The real star of the movie, though, is Teddy Tetzlaff Jr's lighting. Most of it is shot in cheap interiors, but a good proportion of it is shot outside in the dark, with only the light from the rigs to illuminate. And those focused shots against a vast, black background are dramatic and often weirdly beautiful. There's also a fine shot of the engine of the train, a maze of pipes in which the engineer and fireman are lost to the audience. There's an ok script, but that's not what makes this one interesting.

Back in the mid-1990s, while researching, along with Greg Mank, the biography of Dwight Frye, it was believed that "By Whose Hand?" was a "lost" early talkie. Therefore, we were not able to screen it for the book. A few years later (approx. 1998), it was learned that the film, along with a number of other early Columbia titles, had been preserved but was unlikely to ever be released on DVD or shown on TV. That was until this morning, when TCM ran a beautiful print of "By Whose Hand?" The film is a breezy murder mystery (working title was "Murder Express") with Ben Lyon doing a fine job as the lead Jimmy Hawley, a crime reporter, who boards a train more to pursue the beautiful Barbara Weeks than to follow a lead that the escaped Killer Delmar (Nat Pendleton) might be on the train. There are many suspicious characters aboard the train, including Ethel Kenyon as a jewel thief, Kenneth Thomson as a womanizing jeweler, Helene Millard as a "grieving" widow, and the always enjoyable William V. Mong as a vengeful, bitter old man. Detective William Halligan has in his care (in cuffs) one Chick Lewis (Dwight Frye), who had squealed on his old buddy Delmar and is now being transported to prison near San Francisco. There are others on the train who somewhat spoil the mood - a goofy newlywed couple (Lorin Raker and Dolores Rey) and the usually good comic actor Tom Dugan, who somewhat overplays a drunk here and who becomes attached to Lyon. Oscar Smith plays a nervous porter with some good comedy moments.

There are some plot twists and murders on the train which will not be revealed in case TCM airs this again. Suffice it to say Lyon and Weeks play off one another quite well. Their performances do not seem that dated for a 75 year old film. Dwight Frye is more subdued than usual and has a nice sympathetic moment with an actress playing his elderly mother prior to his boarding the train in an early sequence. Mong was beginning to become typecast as miserly old men, but here shows the skills of a veteran actor, even in a role without much dimension. Millard and Kenyon were good in their respective roles, but neither had much success in Hollywood. Barbara Weeks, however, is a fine actress who has never received her proper due from film historians. She gave up her film career (except for a few later appearances) while still in her twenties and was rumored to have died in 1954 (when she actually lived almost 50 years more - until 2003). Her grace, beauty, charm, and sense of humor all come across on screen and make one wonder why her career never really took off.

"By Whose Hand?" is a film I have waited to see for many years and feared I'd never get the chance. Now that I have finally viewed it, I am pleased to say it met and even succeeded my expectations!

If you like movies that take place on trains, you might get a kick out of this Columbia programmer, in which a wide cast of characters become the usual suspects when murder is committed on an L.A. to San Francisco sleeper. Ben Lyon and Barbara Weeks make attractive leads, and some of the supporting players (Ethel Kenyon, Dwight Frye) are interesting to look at. Less successful is Tom Dugan's "comic" bit as a drunk who for obscure reasons attaches himself to the newspaper reporter hero outside a phone booth in Union Station and makes a general pest of himself. Rather below the standard set by Warners for this genre of picture, but entertaining nonetheless, and about 90% of the picture takes place on the train itself, for which Columbia had provided quite nice sets.