Daily Archives: June 21, 2014

The Ghost Train
Directed by Walter Forde
Written by Marriott Edgar, Val Guest, et al
1941/UK
Gainsborough Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Prime Instant Video

[box] Station Master: If this be a natural thing where do it come from, where do it go?[/box]

I certainly didn’t do justice to this comic British thriller by watching it in pieces over a few nights on the old iPad but I probably couldn’t have taken Arthur Askey’s mugging all in one sitting.

A group of English eccentrics is stuck in an isolated waiting room with a dotty old station master when they miss their connection due to the antics of an annoying music hall entertainer (Askey).  The station master and a mad woman fail to scare the ill-humored company away on a stormy night with their stories of a runaway train that haunts the station.

This is all pretty clearly a vehicle for Askey’s in your face brand of cheeky humor and works or not based on the viewer’s tolerance for it.  My own tolerance proved to be on the low side..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJquGozJsF0

Clip – Arthur Askey singing “The Seaside Band”

Mail Train (AKA “Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It”)
Directed by Walter Forde
Written by Val Guest, Frank Launder, et al
1941/UK
Twentieth Century Productions Ltd
First viewing/Internet Archive

[box] fifth column n. A clandestine subversive organization working within a country to further an invading enemy’s military and political aims. [First applied in 1936 to rebel sympathizers inside Madrid when four columns of rebel troops were attacking that city.] [/box]

I could watch Alistair Sim read the phone book and he’s better than that in this wartime British detective story.

Inspector Hornleigh (Gordon Harker) of Scotland Yard is writing his memoir.  He doesn’t give much credit to bumbling sidekick Sergeant Bingham (Sim), who seems to spend more time chatting up lady witnesses than working. Hornleigh is saving the final chapter for a high-profile case involving fifth columnists.  Instead the team is assigned to undercover work on military base to find the culprits who are stealing men’s underwear from the warehouse. After some humiliating days training with heavy packs, the over-aged “recruits” stumble upon a spy ring that is smuggling information to Germany through the mails and the excitement begins.

This made perfect late-night iPad viewing with just enough humor in the intrigue to spice things up.  The droll Sim’s weakness for a pretty face is priceless.