Espionage
                                   
Director: Kurt Neumann
Year: 1937
Rating: 6.0
While watching this, I was assuming that it was a B film attempt at The Lady Vanishes, but in fact it came out a year before that classic Hitchcock film. But it has some of his British era trademarks; the droll humor, the mistaken identities, the romance with a Madeleine Carroll type blonde, rat-a-tat dialogue and of course espionage of sorts. It is a light enjoyable watch that never takes itself too seriously and neither should we. Much more humor than espionage. The romance is pretty standard but always works - a man and a woman pretend to be someone else, find themselves thrown together, some friction between them and the inevitable moment they fall into each other's arms with declarations of love. On a two-seater bicycle.




Munitions manufacturer Kronsky (Paul Lukas) is taking a trip to an unknown destination from Paris. It is big news because Europe is on the edge of war and what he does may bring it about. Two competing newspapers each send a man - or woman - to get on the train and get the story. Patricia (Madge Evans) travels under s false passport since she is persona non grata all over Europe for her articles. She travels as a married woman. Stevens (Edmund Lowe), a well-known author has his passport stolen and so he connives to pretend he is her husband. Neither knowing the other is looking for the same story. The train is full of character actors - Billy Gilbert as a Turk with a hookah pipe, Leonid Kinskey as a man with his head burrowed into a book and Richard Skeets Gallagher as a jovial back-slapping American. One of them is an assassin. Wanting to kill Kronsky. Arms manufacturers were always villains leading up to the war and have been ever since.  Two attempts are made on his life and in the second one Stevens is suspected and has to jump off the train.  To meet up in Switzerland.



Lowe has never been a favorite of mine - too stolid - but he is fine here - a David Niven type would have been better but he tries hard. Madge Evans is delightful, but I am not too familiar with her. Surprising in that she was in one-hundred films going back to her as a child actress but I have only seen a couple of them. She has a star on the Hollywood Hall of Fame. Born in Russia, Kinskey is a favorite character actor whenever I come across him - in many films often uncredited - but if you just watched films that he is in you would have a pretty good list - Casablanca, The Man with the Golden Arm, The Talk of the Town, Ball of Fire, Down Argentine Way, Algiers, Nothing Sacred, Les Miserables, Duck Soup, The Lives of the Bengal Lancers and Trouble in Paradise. I always wonder how these character actors survived - on contract or just paid per film. It is directed by Kurt Neumann - The Fly and a bunch of Tarzan films with Weissmuller.