Mystery Liner (1934) Reviews

• Hide and Seek - Monogram Style

  howdymax2008-10-12

  This is the kind of low rent movie Monogram was justifiably famous for when they weren't making no budget westerns. Secret agents, secret passages, etc. This one has to do with a government project to control ships at sea with a radio control device called S505. In order to test the device, the scientific team installs it in a cruise ship with the cooperation of the captain and his staff. This was 1934 and we didn't actually have an enemy, so Monogram created a "foreign power" as the antagonist, and installed a couple of agents aboard the ship to steal the main component of the device and sabotage the experiment. We spend the rest of the picture trying to figure out who is who - and there really are secret passages. Monogram, as was their practice, cast this picture with fading stars and familiar character actors. This effort stars Noah Beery although he only shows up at the beginning and end of the show. The real "star" is Edwin Maxwell, supported by George Cleveland and Gustav Von Seyffertitz. You get the picture. I won't go any further into the story. It is a pretty formulaic spy yarn you could find on any double bill in any cheap theater back in the old days. But there are those of us that really love them. In fact, although I live in New Mexico, I recently made a pilgrimage to Hollywood. Not for the usual reasons, but to track back the homes and locations of my favorite old time actors and the locations of all those Poverty Row studios of the day. I actually found the original office address of Monogram at the wrong end of Sunset Blvd. I'm afraid most devotees would be disappointed to find that the actual address is occupied by a take out chicken joint. The sound stages across the street are now occupied by what appears to be a television station. I didn't care. I was standing on hallowed ground. I could imagine "The Duke", (whose ranch location I also visited in Encino) driving through the gate in his Chrysler Phantom. The movie has a predictable ending, but the trip there is still entertaining. I have a brother who probably wouldn't appreciate it because it doesn't have a message, it doesn't have a basso thematic orchestration with all the bells and gongs, and it doesn't excite the viewer with sweeping visual images. But for the rest of us peasants, it rounds out the weekend just like grilled bratwurst, potato salad and beer.

• Pretty confusing

  kidboots2009-07-07

  I have seen this film a few times. I keep thinking "was it as bad as I remember" and the answer is yes!!! Based on an Edgar Wallace novel "The Ghost of John Holling" the novelty in this film is seeing actors play against type. Noah Beery who was one of the silent cinema's great villains, plays the gruff but kindly Captain Holling and Gustav Von Seyffertitz, who usually played leering foreign villains, was the "red herring" in "Mystery Liner". As the film starts Captain Holling (Noah Beery) falls strangely ill and is replaced in command by First Mate Downey (Boothe Howard). The ship is also carrying the S 505, an invention created by Grimson (Ralph Lewis) to control ocean liners from a land base. Grimson is found strangled by a rope tied in a similar knot to the one Downey had just shown the waiter (George Nash). Second Officer Cliff Rogers (Cornelius Keefe) is jealous of the attention that Downey is paying Lila (beautiful Astrid Allwyn, billed as Allyn in this film). Among the passengers are Granny (Zeffie Tilbury) an elderly lady on the voyage for her health, who just wants a bit of fun, her wet blanket nephew, Edgar (Jerry Stewart, in his only role of any merit), the mysterious Von Kessling (Gustav Von Seyffertitz) and the pompous Major Pope (Edwin Maxwell). News travels around the ship that the waiter has seen Captain Holling on board. Downey gets agitated and tries to send a message but is killed in the same way as Grimson before he can finish it. Rogers is found beside the body and things don't look too good for him. Everyone is under suspicion, Lila is accused of planting a book in his cabin to incriminate Downey, von Kessling wants to leave the cabin urgently - the "spy" who is seen in silhouette relaying messages, has the same upturned moustache as von Kessling. The invention is put to the test as the ship is put on automatic control. Suddenly the lights go out, Holling is discovered, the ship goes out of control and foreign accents are heard as the S 505 signals are scrambled. Astrid Allwyn was quite a versatile actress. She mainly played chilly "other woman" roles, even turning up as a femme fatale in a Shirley Temple movie "Dimples" (1936) but here she was the menaced heroine. George "Gabby" Hayes played a ship's watchman here, before he went out West.

• Fairly Interesting Story Idea Partially Makes Up For Slow Pace & Other Weaknesses

  Snow Leopard2005-10-24

  The story in this B-feature has some fairly interesting developments, and it makes the movie just worth watching despite a very slow pace and some other weaknesses. The acting performances vary in quality from solid to weak, and the production is adequate most of the time. So in most respects it is a typical B-movie of its era, but the story offered some possibilities that might have furnished the basis of a better movie. The story starts with a liner preparing to test a Professor's device for using remote-control to guide the ship from a laboratory. The experiment is complicated by the captain's nervous breakdown and by an on-board murder. The ship also contains numerous passengers, some with various eccentricities and others with some suspicious characteristics. While the setup could have been taken in a number of different directions, the way it actually develops is probably as good as any. One of the main things that keeps it from being better is that too many of the key characters never take form, remaining uninteresting and one-dimensional. Likewise, the dialogue never approaches the interest level of the story. And too often, things move very slowly, making it seem longer than the running time. On the plus side, it maintains the mystery level rather well, and it does hold your attention. The atmosphere is not always maintained, but for much of the time the shipboard setting is used fairly well. More than anything, the remote-control idea is used in a way that was rather creative for its era, and it almost provides enough interest in itself to make you keep watching.

• A Real Sleeper Ship

  Mike-7642004-02-24

  Professor Grimson invents a device which can power a liner by remote control. Obviously enemy spies would love to get ahold of the device and send an agent to mix among the various vacationers unnoticed while he or she sabotaged the ship. The inventor is strangled and the crew must wait until the steering experiment is proven a success before the saboteur strikes, and what has this all to do with the ship's captain, Holling taking ill right before the ship is to depart. Very shoddy script and direction send this one to Davy Jones locker. The first 45 minutes is describing parts of the mechanism, then introducing the passengers and watching them mingle with each other before anything remotely interesting happens at the end, which last about three minutes, and seems so out of place with the pace of the earlier footage. Not good, even by Monogram standards. Zeffie Tilbury is annoying as the old lady looking for romance. Only plus for this film for me, was that, as always, Astrid Allwyn looked cute as a button. Edwin Maxwell and Gustav Von Seyffertitz lend a sinister presence. Rating- 3.

• Huh...what did I just watch?

  Antoine_Bugleboy2006-12-02

  One reviewer here made some sardonic remarks and referred to this being a "Grade C" Hollywood product. If thats so, I'd hate to see what "Grade D" looks like. Normally, I can find simple enjoyments in even the lowest budgeted films of this period. I like many of the early 'Thirties films from the cheapo studios, but this is one I have no idea who it could appeal to. Forget the premise, it's all nonsense. Only if your curious what Zeffie "Mama Joad" Tilbury was up to at this early stage in her career, would I excuse you for watching this . Old stalwart of the silent era, Gustav von Seyffertitz, is the only one of the main characters, who doesn't completely make a fool of himself. Most of the performers look like they're acting through a thick gelatinous liquid, with such painful back and forth gestures. It looks like the director was either shouting at them in several different languages, or had them drugged. By the 52nd minute (it felt like 92nd) Mrs. Tilbury flops in her cabin with the exhausted remark: "I've never been so bored in my life". The films one irrefutable, unintentional laugh.