Murder in the Private Car
                                                                                                   
Director: Harry Beaumont
Year: 1934
Rating: 6.0
A chaotic film that makes little sense, but it left me with a smile on my face. It is a murder film with sporadic doses of comedy along the way provided by Charles Ruggles and Una Merkel. They may be an acquired comedic taste with their quick nonsensical dialogue but what I could keep up with cracked me up. Subs would have helped with this one. Then just for absolutely no reason at all they introduce a gorilla and then get rid of it and finally the film turns into Speed.  Ya, that Speed with a train that is out of control and will explode if it hits anything. It is a surprisingly tense and brilliant scene - ok not that tense since all the stars are on it - all crammed into 60 minutes of silly fun.

 

Mary Carlisle and Una Merkel are telephone operators living the grudge life, until Mary is notified that she is the daughter of a wealthy man (Berton Churchill). She was kidnapped as a child by his brother and then he disappeared. Happy smiles all around as she and Una quit their jobs and make plans to spend the money. But first there is an attempted kidnapping that is foiled by Ruggles who calls himself a Deflector. He stops crimes before they happen. Why he was there to stop the kidnapping is just because. Nothing he says makes much sense. But a phony telegram gets Mary and Una on a train to go see her father. In the Private Car. Which is basically a booby trap of explosives and hidden rooms. Ruggles is on board as well and has fallen for Una. A cute couple. They can look forward to years of bliss, not understanding each other.

 

The scene in which the brakes have been cut, the Private Car unhooked and speeding backwards with explosives set is well done as railroad workers feverishly change tracks to keep it from exploding. And clearly a gorilla suit was available from some other film and so they decide to use it and have an escaped gorilla from a circus get on board. What is a film without a gorilla appearing. The black porter is played by Fred Snowflake Toones who is almost needless to say stereotyped and was in over 200 films often as a porter on a train. Apparently, between films he ran a shoeshine stand at Republic Pictures.