Mon 6 Jul 2015
MYSTERY LINER. Monogram, 1934. Noah Beery, Astrid Allwyn, Edwin Maxwell, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Ralph Lewis, Cornelius Keefe, Zeffie Tilbury, Boothe Howard. Based on the short story “The Ghost of John Holling” (The Saturday Evening Post, 8 March 1924) by Edgar Wallace. Director: William Nigh.
The story was good enough to be reprinted in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (April 1963), but watching this movie based on it is as big a waste of time as watching the city trucks cruise up and down the block on garbage pickup day.
It has something to do with a new scientific discovery that allows ships at sea to be operated by remote control from a staff of laboratory workers on shore. Lots of secret skulkers abound, including someone who looks like the previous captain, who was replaced when he was overcome by madness and was taken to a sanitarium.
Plus secret passages, if I’m not giving too much away, a shot in the dark when the lights go out, another murder, and for comedy relief, a noisy old biddy who takes over the film when nothing else of importance is going on, which seems like half the film, but probably isn’t.
Director William Nigh went on to better if not bigger things, such as the Mr. Wong movies, but Noah Beery’s role of the original captain is so small it could have been played by anyone. Some claim he was in it only for his name on the marquee value. Certainly no one else’s had any, then or now.
July 7th, 2015 at 4:28 am
Sadly typical Monogram fare, and I admire you for getting through it.
July 7th, 2015 at 12:57 pm
Sometimes late at night inertia simply takes over.
July 7th, 2015 at 1:35 pm
The name “Astrid Allyn” on the poster seemed familiar and then I remembered that an actress named “Astrid Allwyn” played Phoebe [sic] Lane in one of the early Shadow films: International Crime (1938). Someone can probably tell me whether they are the same person.
July 7th, 2015 at 3:35 pm
Continuing comment #3: I’m going to guess that the name on the poster (“Astrid Allyn”) is just a misspelling for “Astrid Allwyn.”
July 7th, 2015 at 3:53 pm
I’ve been out all afternoon, so I haven’t had a chance to check this out until now.
I didn’t notice that the poster spelled her name as Allyn instead of Allwyn, which I believe is how it’s spelled in the credits. But according to IMDb, she was billed as Astrid Allyn in Beggars in Ermine (1934), which was either the movie immediately before or after this one.
So I wouldn’t call it a misspelling per se, just a variation on her name, decided upon at the time for one reason or another. ¿Quien sabe?
July 7th, 2015 at 3:55 pm
Wikipedia spells it with a “w” and she has a long list of film credits including some better films than this one.
July 7th, 2015 at 3:58 pm
Including INTERNATIONAL CRIME, finally getting around to answering your question in Comment #3.
July 7th, 2015 at 6:06 pm
I’ve always thought of cast member Edwin Maxwell as the low-budget Edward Arnold.
July 7th, 2015 at 7:17 pm
Your comparison is well taken, Gary. For those who don’t recognize the name, that’s him in the first photo above, the man with the cigar just to the right of center.
Taking a look at his list of credits, of the over 150 films he was in, most of them appear to be as low budget as this one was, or what were small parts in bigger films:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0561693/reference