The Phantom Express

A railroad company is threatened with closure after a series of fatal accidents. In each case the driver reports seeing a train heading directly towards them. The company CEO's (Harry Bosworth) son (William Collier Jr.), normally a playboy investigates (mostly because he fancy's one of the accused driver's daughter played by Sally Blane).

A gritty action melodrama that draws heavily on Arnold Ridley and Bernard Merivale's British play, 'The Wrecker'. Made by B movie company Majestic Films, it makes for solid B movie entertainment.

This film begins with what appears to be a model train going down the model tracks. However, at least it is a pretty good model train! Anyway, it's supposed to be a real one and an accident is caused when the headlamp of another train appears to be heading right for them—and the train derails trying to avoid it. However, it turns out there was no other train—it's some sort of trick. So, the playboy son of the railroad owner decides to go undercover to investigate.

While this all might sound interesting, despite an interesting premise, the film really bogs down and shows that it's only a cheaply made film by a cheap-o studio. After all, the ending is just god-awful—with ridiculous stunts and an explanation of the mystery that made my brain hurt. I can clearly understand why this film was allowed to slip into the public domain—it's bad and there's little to recommend it.

The Phantom Express is an early talkie that impresses in a few ways. It's about a series of train accidents caused by an unexplainable phantom express whose headlights appear every few nights on the tracks. This mysterious train bears down on other locomotives causing them to brake suddenly and derail. The driver of the latest train to encounter the phenomena is fired in disgrace as the investigators do not believe his story. It's left to him and the son of the railroad president to clear his name and find out what is behind the notorious phantom express.

The Phantom Express is a fine example of one of the many mystery films released in the 1930's. Admittedly the actual mystery itself is a little easy to work out and the plot is structured such that it's obvious that the rival railroad company are behind things in some way. Nevertheless, there is still much to admire in this cool little film. As poverty row movies go, this has to be one of the better put-together. Where other cheap genre films of the 30's often restricted themselves to two or three studio-created locations, The Phantom Express includes many scenes set on the grounds of the rail-yard construction site. This authenticity is welcome and adds nice detail to proceedings. Conversely, I really enjoyed the model-work used for the train scenes. It was very well done and looked very cool, giving the film a lot of character and soul. This model-work was well integrated with the live action, especially in the final ride through the storm and was effective in generating suspense. A similarly well-handled thrilling scene was where the signalmen are tied up by thugs and made to helplessly watch the oncoming phantom express bear down the tracks on another train. Great stuff. Ultimately, the mystery of the phantom express is resolved with an explanation that I thought was kind of funny. I won't give anything away so will leave this little amusement for first time viewers to discover for themselves.

The cast acquit themselves well but a special mention should be made for J. Farrell MacDonald who is excellent as the fired train driver. The scene where he breaks down at his birthday party after being sacked is very good; MacDonald certainly put a lot of emotion into that moment. I also have to mention Axel Axelson, who plays MacDonald's trusty sidekick. Not only does he have a name that sounds like it should belong to an 80's hair metal guitarist, but he also has one of the craziest accents you are ever liable to hear. It seems to be a mix of Swedish, Dutch, Irish and possibly Martian. It's difficult to say with any certainty but it's funny as hell.

The Phantom Express comes recommended to anyone interested in early talkies and/or 30's mysteries. It's a very worthy little obscurity that has a great deal of charm about it.

Mystery thriller 'quickie'. A train crashes one night on a rural US rail network. The crew insist they saw another train headed towards them on the same track, and that to prevent a collision they braked sharply; unfortunately their train derailed, killing several passengers. After the crash there is no sign of the other train, and a subsequent board of enquiry can find no record of it. As a result the driver of the crashed engine is sacked. Compounded by a series of other incidents and another sighting of the so called 'phantom express', the network's share prices begin to drop, causing the president of another rail company to make an offer - albeit a low one - to buy them out. The playboy son of the network's boss decides to finally do something with his life, and try to 1) solve the mystery, 2) save the engine driver's job, and 3) prevent his father from having to sell the company at a loss.

No big names, but quite a few familiar faces of the period. The cast act in that unmistakable style of the time, but they're pretty good. It's obviously low budget, and some of the train shots are clearly actually model railways. Some of the sound effects are a little unconvincing too! And at a runtime of just 70 minutes it still manages to feel padded in places. But it's enjoyable, and the gung-ho attitude of the son and his helpers is fun to watch. 6/10.

Without a doubt, The Phantom Express (1932) is my all-time favorite early talkie, railroad-themed movie. J.Farrel McDonald is outstanding as Smokey Nolan, the long-time engineer. I've seen a few other movies where McDonald plays a railroad-related part (e.g., with Victor McLaglen in The Broadway Limited) and it would appear that McDonald probably worked for the railroads prior to becoming a very good character actor as he played his parts with a great deal of ease and apparent intimate knowledge of the subject matter. Phantom Express was also very interesting from the standpoint that it was shot in live action, in/around LA and the Southern Pacific Railroad (including real shots of the SP boardroom at the old Central Station at 5th and Alameda), the SP Alhambra Roundhouse, Burbank Tower, etc. Also, the special effects modelling scenes were very much ahead of their time in terms of realism. All together, an excellent film of which I own several copies.