STREAMLINE EXPRESS

US, 1935, 71 minutes, Black-and-white.
Victor Jory, Evelyn Venable, Esther Ralston, Erin O' Brien- Moore, Ralph Forbes, Sidney Blackmer, Vince Barnett, Clay Clement.
Directed by Leonard Fields.

This light entertainment begins as if it were going to be a film about the theatre, an angry director, rehearsals, a missing leading lady. In fact, it is a train journey film – and a most elaborate train for 1935, allegedly going on a monorail between New York City and Los Angeles in 20 hours, and a luxury hotel-like interior. (Not particularly likely at that time!)

Victor Jory, best known for dramatic and sinister roles, tries his hand at light comedy, bringing a certain toughness to it as the director and then posing as a steward on the train. Evelyn Venable is the missing actress, feeling humiliated by the director, going to marry a wealthy man in Santa Barbara, still in love with the director but exhibiting all the battle of the sexes syndrome.

While there is this battle of the sexes, with her intended husband being sympathetic to the steward, believing his stories about his fiancee being mentally unstable, there are some other complications on the train. There is a married man going off with a blonde who is being blackmailed for robbery by a sinister and suave criminal, played by Sidney Blackmer. There is the wife of the married man who gets onto the train, surprises her husband and his girlfriend. There are the various stewards, robbery of a pendant, the suave criminal concealing it, twists in the screenplay where the steward is to make up the bed, looks into magazine, sees that his actress recommends men shave and so he does, discovering the pendant – and then, of course, being blamed for the robbery!

There is also a comic turn by perennial comic Vince Barnett, son of vaudevillilans, an unlikely father, but hoping that his wife will give birth on the train in California so that they can inherit $10,000. She gives birth in Arizona! But, for a satisfactory end to the film, hosted by a drunk who continually reappears, a twin is born in California. And the fiance, decent chap that he is, withdraws to leave the happy couple together.

The film was written and directed by Leonard Fields who wrote a few films and directed four during the 1930s. (In the previous year there was Twentieth Century, a train romantic comedy with John Barrymore and Carole Lombard.)