Sun 4 Aug 2013
Ad found in a playbook: ARNOLD RIDLEY – The Ghost Train: A Mystery Play (1923).
Posted by Steve under Mystery plays , Reviews[6] Comments
ARNOLD RIDLEY – The Ghost Train. A mystery thriller in 3 acts. Produced originally at the Eltinge Theatre, New York, 1923. Cast: 7 males, 4 females, 1 interior scene. Modern costumes. Note: For much more about this play, including its many radio, film and audiobook adaptations, see its Wikipedia entry here. Shown is the playbill for the 2012-2013 revival.]
The story is laid in a peaceful village in Maine where there lives a superstition of twenty years standing about a ghost train which flashes by in the dead of night, swinging the scythe of death. Rumrunners use this superstition to their own advantage in the transportation of liquor from Canada.
As the night train draws into the small station, some passengers get off and the train moves on. These passengers are compelled to wait all night, for they have missed connections.
And what a night they spend. When the decrepit old station-master tells them about the terrifying “Ghost Train,” bringing death to all who observe it, they just poo-pooh the idea. But everything happens as forecast.
The station-master is stricken dead mysteriously. The signal bell rings. The engine whistles. The train roars through the junction and one who rashly gazes upon it apparently succumbs. Lovers of mystery plays will find here a piece to their liking.
Editorial Comment: Thanks once again to Mike Tooney for finding this short piece while on his never-ending travels through the Internet. (Scroll down a short way.)
August 4th, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Walter Forde’s 1941 British film version is delightful fun.
It is full of zany British comedians of the era – more a comedy, with a few thrills.
It is very flavorful, and a bit like I imagine going to a London music hall might have been like.
I come from a railroading family – my grandfather drove a train in Chicago.
I love train mysteries.
August 4th, 2013 at 8:58 pm
I confess that I love old mysteries that take place on trains, too. This sounds like one I’d enjoy a lot.
August 5th, 2013 at 10:03 am
The story doesn’t actually take place on a train, Steve. It unfolds in and around a train station.
THE GHOST TRAIN was Britain’s answer to THE CAT AND THE CANARY. It was revived numerous times on the West End and remains a staple of stock companies. And there were no less than ten film and TV adaptations, produced in Britain, Germany, Denmark, and even Romania. The 1931 and 1941 British versions are the best known, although the 1927 silent — restored some years ago — has much to recommend it. Like CAT AND THE CANARY, Arnold Ridley’s play is as much comedy as thriller, as Mike Grost pointed out. The 1927 German film version attempted to mute the humor, but the results were mixed.
August 5th, 2013 at 10:18 am
Thanks for the correction, Ed, and the additional info. Looking back, I see that what I should have said is that I love old mysteries that take place on trains or involve trains. I’ll have to see about getting copies of the British film versions.
August 5th, 2013 at 12:51 pm
I’ve seen the movie adaptation of this stage play (it’s on YouTube like so many public domain movies). The movie is less of a thriller/mystery and more of a comedy. It seemed to be produced as a vehicle for Arthur Askey, a comic actor who reminded me of a young British Ed Wynn. But it has a nice bit of a surprise in the end. I imagine without all the nutty comedy it would be a neat little chiller on stage. As Ed points out above it does not take place on the train at all. The movie tends to be confined to the single set of a train depot waiting room.
June 28th, 2023 at 7:30 am
I suspect The Ghost Train is not inspired by The Cat And The Canary.
The Ghost Train is a stage comedy-thriller, written in 1923 by the English actor and playwright Arnold Ridley. While it’s true the stage play of Canary was first produced in New York in 1922 the genesis of The Ghost Train is very different as is the story.
‘Ridley was inspired to write the play after becoming stranded overnight at Mangotsfield railway station (a now “lost stationâ€, on the defunct Midland Railway Company’s main line), during a rail journey through the Gloucestershire countryside. The deserted station’s atmosphere, combined with hearing the non-stop Bath to Gloucester express using an adjacent curved diversionary main line to by-pass Mangotsfield, which created the illusion of a train approaching, passing through and departing, but not being seen, impressed itself upon Ridley’s senses. The play took him only a week to write.’
That said the Arthur Askey film took huge liberties with the play and is inferior to it.