Pullman 12

By Whose Hand? (1932)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Enjoyable mystery from Columbia, which was once thought lost until being discovered back in 1998 (so I've read). A playboy detective (Ben Lyon) with the lust for women cracks the story of a serial killer who has escaped from prison. While following a lead he ends up on a train where a wide range of suspicious character lure including a murderer. The actual mystery of this film is pretty good but there are way too many attempts at comedy. Some of it works like the drunk who keeps following the detective around but some falls flat on its face. Lyon is decent in the lead but he's never really able to pull off all the charming, lead male stuff. Tom Dugan steal the show as the drunk and Dwight Frye has a small role as a mother loving bad guy. When I say mother loving I really mean it as there's an extremely bizarre scene at the start of the film where he's holding his mother as you'd expect to see someone hold their lover. Then he plants a big, hard kiss on her lips! Directed by Benjamin Stoloff who would direct Bela Lugosi the following year in Night of Terror.

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!

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.

Murder mystery B-movies are a dime a dozen and they must have made thousands of them in the 1930s and 40s. Because of this, I had low expectations for "By Whose Hand?"....fortunately, my first instinct was wrong!

The story begins with a man being murdered while aboard a train. Soon, you see newspaper headlines announcing that 'Killer' Delmar, the escaped maniac, is responsible! The scene then cuts to a train station and a bunch of different folks and their stories are introduced...much like you'd see in a film like "Airport". This would seem to indicate that Killer Delmar will strike on this train. But what you don't realize is that there are more evil people aboard. There's the convicted criminal being taken to prison as well as several career criminals who are hiding out among the many passengers.

The reason why I enjoyed this Columbia movie so much was the excellent writing. I almost gave the movie an 8 but decided against it due to a couple cheesy things I saw in the film (such as the comic relief drunk)...but otherwise an excellent film. In particular, the finale is marvelous and makes such a humble picture seem bigger and better.

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.