Sun 20 Nov 2016
A Movie Serial Review by Dan Stumpf: THE HURRICANE EXPRESS (1932).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[10] Comments
THE HURRICANE EXPRESS. Mascot Pictures, 12 chapter serial, 1932. Tully Marshall, Conway Tearle, John Wayne, Shirley Gray, Edmund Breese, Lloyd Whitlock. Directors: J. P. McGowan & Armand Schaefer.
Speaking of Serials (here and here), I did spend four hours and twenty minutes watching The Hurricane Express, a Twelve chapter 1932 release of somewhat modest dimensions from the folks at Mascot, whom I mentioned some time ago in connection with The Last of the Mohicans.
Hurricane Express would probably be pretty much forgotten today, except that it starred an overgrown athlete of exceptional thespic incompetence (in those days) named John Wayne. Wayne had just come off the biggest commercial flop of his career, The Big Trail, and found himself sudenly a Star with nowhere to go; the closest contemporary comparison would probably be Klinton Spillsbury.
Anyway, for the next few years Wayne would shift uneasily between minor parts at Major Studios and Star Turns on Gower Gulch, until the years somehow turned him into a seasoned performer. Hurricane Express is one of the happier steps in his apprenticeship, a film that enabled him to show off his natural athleticism while avoiding the Big Dramatic Scenes that he was as yet woefully ill-equipped to handle.
The Plot, such as it is, deals with Young Duke’s efforts to catch The Wrecker, a Pulp-style Master of Disguise who goes around smashing toy trains (the miniature work/special effects in this are about on a par with The Claw Monsters) and is responsible for the death of Wayne’s Dear old Dad in an HO scale pile-up. Writer/Director Armand Schaefer puts some nice touches in, though, and even manages a Real Thrill from time to time, what with folks jumping on and off speeding trains, shooting down airplanes, stealing the Gold Shipment and gosh-all.
There’s also a nifty bit involving the Wrecker’s Secret Identity: He apparently has detailed life-masks of everyone in the cast, and goes around impersonating them for his own evil ends. What this means in practical terms of course, is that Wally The Brakeman, who’s been acting sort of suspicious for the last few chapters, will suddenly do something overtly criminal, then sneak out of sight, clinching everyone’s suspicions that he’s actually the Wrecker. Then the actor playing him will reach behind his own neck the camera pans to his feet, and a mask of Wally’s face drops to the floor -neatly confounding our suspicions and eliminating the necessity of paying another player.
So who is the Wrecker? Well, I had a good hunch by Chapter 2 and was pretty well sure of it by Chapter 4. He’s the one who acts normal; the one without an obsession over something-or-other; the fellow who tries to be helpful and counsels everyone to take the path of least resistance. A man, in fact very much like you or me. Or like me, anyway.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I always thought it should be a sign of Literary Sophistication not to be able to pick out the Mystery Villain in one of these things. I mean, when we get to the scene where they’ve tied up Dick Dauntless and are torturing Helen Heroine, and Freddy-who’s-been-hanging-around-all-movie-for-no-apparent-reason pipes up, “Oh for Gawd’s sakes, Helen, tell them where the Map is!” the Truly Discerning Viewer should think he’s supposed to identify with this guy: “Obviously, the writers put him in to add a touch of Evelyn-Waugh realism to the Characterizations, someone to take our minds off the cardboard protagonists and their pulp-paper problems. A Henry James Everyman to provide a touchstone of emotional verisimilitude. What? You mean he’s the Villain? How utterly crass!”
November 20th, 2016 at 2:05 pm
I saw my first serials on TV when I was a kid: The Phantom Empire, starring Gene Autry: Flash Gordon on Mars, with Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers; and Buck Rogers, also with Crabbe. I’ve been a fan ever since. We regularly watch a chapter of a serial whenever we have friends over for a movie night. Overall, acting, sets, and production values: pretty bad. Action: Superlative.
November 21st, 2016 at 12:18 am
Mascot would mature into Republic, in the meantime they did this and two others with Wayne (SHADOW OF THE EAGLE a circus serial, and THE THREE MUSKETEERS a Foreign Legion effort with Lon Chaney Jr.), the good MIRACLE RIDER with Tom Mix, and the excellent VIGILANTES ARE COMING with Bob Livingston just before becoming Republic.
I suspect Yakima Cannutt worked on this, he later co directed one Republic serial, that could explain some of the better stunts. I don’t know if Tom Steele and Dale Van Sickel were yet at their future home.
I can’t really say Wayne showed much sign of learning to act until he started the Three Mesquiteers series as Stony, by which time some screen presence and charisma were showing through. Still it’s fun to spot him as a bit more than a bit player in early films like Wellman’s BABY FACE or as a crooked fighter mixed up with George Bancroft and his son Charles Starrett.
I like best spotting him playing male ingenue in B Weaterns with the likes of Buck Jones and Tim McCoy. When you make the Colonel look like a natural born actor you really need a learning curve.
Ironically I was thinking of reviewing a serial the other day. I think I’ll put it off and give people time to recover instead.
November 21st, 2016 at 12:22 am
Just a note, The railroad movie was dying as the last days of the silent film and the early talkies rolled in. It lasted in a handful of series like this and the Conan Doyle inspired THE LOST SPECIAL, and a handful of features, but flying quickly replaced it, though trains still figured in films well into the seventies as settings.
Ironically the railroad movie, pulp, and novel (a specialty of Frank Packard) all went at about the same time.
November 21st, 2016 at 1:55 am
What’s a good definition of a railroad movie, David?
November 21st, 2016 at 2:17 am
David,
Small correction: THE VIGILANTES ARE COMING is an early Republic serial. Its connection with Mascot Pictures is its producer, Nat Levine, who founded Mascot.
November 21st, 2016 at 10:03 pm
Gary, thanks. I clearly got that wrong.
Steve,
Railroad movies and literature tended to be about the men who operated the big locomotives, usually a cantankerous old engineer with a pretty daughter and the young son of the company president sent to learn from him incognito or a young man sent to replace the old engineer.
They were mostly contemporary and usually there was a rival trying to sabotage the company. Various elements of crime and adventure worked into the plot and there was often a race or a deadline and or a natural disaster and the tough old engineer was the only one who could get through, often dying in the effort.
They even tried to revive the genre on television with Alan Hale Jr. In CASEY JONES.
Actually the plots weren’t all that different from flying movies, just earth bound.
November 21st, 2016 at 10:40 pm
Thanks, David. Your description of a “railroad movie” matches up with what I had in mind, but I hadn’t been able to put it into words yet. With your help, I’ve come up with the following as a one sentence definition: How about “a movie whose focus is on the men running a railroad and their problems in doing so,” as distinguished from movies that only take place on railroads; in the latter, the emphasis is on the passengers.
November 22nd, 2016 at 4:59 am
Maybe we should pair this with a review of THE TRAIN.
November 22nd, 2016 at 2:36 pm
You write it, Dan, and I’ll post it.
November 22nd, 2016 at 11:23 pm
Love to see it Dan, THE TRAIN is a great film.