Sat 28 May 2011
BOMBAY MAIL. Universal Pictures, 1934. Edmund Lowe (Inspector Dyke), Ralph Forbes, Shirley Grey, Hedda Hopper, Onslow Stevens. Based on the novel by Lawrence G. Blochman. Director: Edwin L. Marin.
In the novel, the leading detective is Inspector Leonidas Prike, who made repeat appearances in two later Blochman novels, Bengal Fire (1937) and Red Snow at Darjeeling (1938). All three books, rather obviously, take place in India.
But Bombay Mail also has the advantage, as far as I’m concerned, of taking place on a train, which in case of the motion picture is a huge plus, with the clickety-clack of the wheels on the track being heard at least 98% of the time. (I say this even though it was filmed, I’m sure, on a stage set).
What Inspector Dyke must learn, as the trains cuts across the Indian sub-continent from Calcutta to Bombay, is first who poisoned the British governor of Bengal (lots of suspects on the train, with lots of reasons – one per suspect, at least), then who shoots the Maharajah of Zungore before he can tell Dyke what he knows and who he saw doing what.
There is, as there has to be, one femme fatale among the suspects, and in Bombay Mail she is played by Shirley Grey, known in some circles as Russian opera singer Sonia Smeganoff, and by others as plain Beatrice Jones (on her passport).
Questions: Who supplied her with the ticket she needed to be on the train before she was deported? Who had access to the cyanide used? (Quite a few, as the Inspector Dyke soon learns.) Who is the mysterious Mr. Xavier, and who is the dangerous-looking man he hires to keep an eye on John Hawley? Why does the scientist Dr. Lenoir carry a deadly king cobra snake around in his handbag? And what are those valuable rubies doing in Hawley’s tobacco pouch?
This is definitely my kind of movie, and maybe yours as well, but overall I was disappointed. There is too much plot for too little playing time (70 minutes or so), and it takes a long time for the viewer (me) to sort out who all the players are and what the connections are between them. Perhaps I was slow on the uptake, but I believe another 20 or 30 minutes of movie time would have been useful.
I’m still going to recommend this movie to you. One should never complain too loudly about too much plot in a detective movie, especially one that takes place on a train. When I watch this one again, and I will, I’m going to enjoy it immensely.
May 29th, 2011 at 6:20 am
I agree with you about train movies, though I haven’t seen this one. I did read the book, which I enjoyed (as I recall).
May 29th, 2011 at 10:14 am
I’ve read the three Prike books, too, but never had a chance to see the movie. Favorite of the three books: BENGAL FIRE. Blochman is a gifted mystery writer.
Thank you for an interesting review.
May 29th, 2011 at 10:49 am
Given a longer running time and more money in the budget, BOMBAY MAIL as a movie could have challenged MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS as a train mystery that might still be remembered. Not the solution, of course, there’s no comparison there, but in terms of the general ambiance and the complicated connections between the passengers.
I will have to make a point of reading the novel. I have had a copy of the Dell mapback (#488) for what seems like forever, and I don’t think I have ever opened it. The only stories I’ve read by Blochman have been in his Dr. Coffee series, which were the basis of a long-forgotten TV series titled DIAGNOSIS: UNKNOWN (CBS, 1960). It was a summer replacement show for Garry Moore starring Patrick O’Neal, Chester Morris and Phyllis Newman. Coffee was a pathologist by trade, but along the way he came across a lot of mysteries to solve.
May 29th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
The Dr. Coffee books are Blochman’s best works. There are two short story collections and a novel. Wish someone would reprint them.
Have never had a chance to see the TV series.
For what it’s worth, thought BOMBAY MAIL was the weakest of the three Inspector Prike novels. BENGAL FIRE is a much better read.
I too love mysteries on trains. A favorite episode of the CHEYENNE TV series is THE IRON TRAIL, a dandy mystery-on-a-train. This is available for instant viewing on Netflix.
May 29th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
YouTube has what appears to be a complete episode of Diagnosis Unknown available to view.
Diagnosis Unknown “The Case of the Radiant Wine”
May 29th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Thanks, Michael! Here’s a direct link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcttruT6jR4
I’ve remembered this series since it was first on, some 50 years ago, never thinking I’d ever see it again, and here one of the episodes pops up.
What’s really amazing it that it popped up only 6 days ago, about the same time I was watching BOMBAY MAIL on bootleg DVD.
Synchronicity strikes again…!
May 29th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
I just watched it too.
It has a really New York feel. Maybe that should be New Yawk!
The Blochman tales are very Midwestern: maybe Ohio.
The characters’ names and scientific skills are the same.
But they now are “New York sophisticates”.
Very interesting!
The show uses the kinds of staging, dialogue and camera movement found in 1950’s live television.
It was directed by Fielder Cook, one of the leading lights of 1950’s live TV drama.
June 1st, 2011 at 4:42 pm
“Bombay Mail” was screened at Cinevent, in Columbus, this past weekend.
I certainly agree with your assessment of the film, which is fun but cluttered with too much plot and too little development of the large cast of characters. This might, however, repay a visiting, and I’ll be interested in your take on the film after a second viewing.
There were several crime films screened, and, of the ones I saw, I was most impressed by “The Under-Cover Man,” a 1932 Paramount Publix release, that gave George Raft his first starring role. He had no great range as an actor, but the role, that of a small-time crook who goes undercover for the police to help them catch the murderer of his father, nicely suited his talent. It also helped that he had a strong supporting cast that included Nancy Carroll, Lew Cody, David Landau, Gregory Ratoff and Roscoe Karns.
I was less impressed by a British film, “Appointment with Crime” (a British National release, 1946), a grim little drama that was marred by a badly written climax that may have been scripted to satisfy a morality code demanding a “suitable” punishment for the criminal lead (Kenneth Harlan). There were some striking performances, most notably that of Herbert Lom as an upperclass villain, standing out among the lowlifes he dealt with.
An oddity was “Blondie Has Servant Trouble,” an old house mystery in the long-running Columbia series based on the even longer-running newspaper strip. I’ve seen the movie more than once (and I did see it on its original release) and it’s probably the only one of the series that I would watch again. An enthusiastic Variety review is quoted, and, with even a modicum of encouragement, I will pull the film from my box set of the complete series (now you know the probably awful truth about my taste in films) and see if it’s held up for me.
For the record, the films I most enjoyed at the convention were “Dick Turpin” (Fox 1925; John G. Blystone, director; starring Tom Mix); “The Virginian” (B. P. Schulberg Productions, 1923; Tom Forman, director; Kenneth Harlan (The Virginian), Florence Vidor (Molly Woods), Russell Simpson (Trampas), and Pat O’Malley (Steve); and “Mare Nostrum” (MGM, 1926; Rex Ingram, director; Alice Terry and Antonio Moreno).
I will add that “Ellery Queen’s Penthouse Mystery” (Darmour Inc. production/Columbia release, 1941; James Hogan, director, Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charley Grapewin, and Anna May Wong, among a cast of familiar faces) seemed to me a silly travesty of the EQ character, with Bellamy dithering through much of the film over Nikki Porter’s “meddling” in a murder investigation instead of sticking to her typewriter and working on his latest novel. After the screening, when a friend asked me what I thought of the film, and I told him, it was only then that he told me that, fired by his enjoyment of the film, he had bought a complete set of the Queen films from one of the convention dealers. Not one of my more comfortable moments during the convention.
September 8th, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Re Diagnosis Unknown TV Series. Martin Huston, who plays a lab assistant, Linc I believe, was a friend of mine. His mother, Marcella Martin, auditioned for Scarlet in GWTW and ended with a small part in the finished film. When I met her, she was still somewhat glamorous and doing double duty as an executive secretary at CTI Records and a freelance sometime script writer for various New York based soaps. Have no idea which one(s).