Murder in the Private Car (1934)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Copyright 27 June 1934 by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Corp. No New York opening. Australian release: 5 December 1934. 7 reels. 63 minutes.U.K. release title: MURDER ON THE RUNAWAY TRAIN.SYNOPSIS: A telephone switchboard operator in a Los Angeles stockbroking firm is suddenly told she is the long-lost heiress of a New York railroad tycoon.COMMENT: Weird yet wholly wonderful, "Murder in the Private Car" is undoubtedly the best "B" film M-G-M ever made. True, it was never showcased in New York. The reason for this apparent neglect was not the studio's belief that the movie lacked anything in entertainment. Rather the contrary. In fact the movie opened not as a "B", but as a main feature in Australia. The problem in New York was simply the film's lack of big-gun star power and its short running time. M-G-M had agreed to support other studios and the cinema chains in a campaign to stamp out double features, thus not only achieving cost- cutting all around but enabling city theaters to run more sessions per day. The picture-going public, however, stubbornly and steadfastly resisted this proposed change. (It was not in fact until nearly fifty years later that the studios finally achieved their desire). Studio chiefs Mayer and Thalberg were well aware of the public's real sentiments. Not only that but Louis B. Mayer himself always had a soft spot for the "B" feature. He regarded the "B" not only as an excellent training ground for producers, directors, writers and all other creative personnel, but he also knew that a "B" feature, no matter its quality, just so long as it was completed either on or below budget, was assured of a certain profit. However, to Mayer, quality was also important because the prestige of the studio was at stake. It was always Mayer's aim to make M-G-M's "B"-movies the best in the industry. Accordingly, whilst he and Thalberg gave lip service to the industry campaign, in actual fact the studio did not curtail its "B" production units in any way at all. So what they did they did was simply to cut the number shown in New York where the industry's anti-double- feature bandwagon was at its strongest.When I said "Murder in the Private Car" was the best, I meant not only best in sheer entertainment, but in technical and artistic quality as well. So far as entertainment was concerned, contemporary audiences much have been knocked right out of their seats. Not only is the movie super-fast-paced, densely written and ingeniously characterized, it all comes to the most stunningly extravagant climax ever devised for a "B" picture. The extraordinary location footage is so cleverly combined with the most realistic miniatures that it's absolutely impossible on one or two viewings to determine where one begins and the other ends.Beaumont's direction is as zippily smooth as the crackerjack plot. The work of two photographers is also superbly meshed by an astute film editor, whilst the dazzling art direction and attractive costume design are miracles of "B"-movie artistry.Mary Carlisle is one of the most sympathetic of heroines. And here she receives solid support even from the likes of Una Merkel (who in many other pictures is inclined to over-act). Charles Ruggles' impersonation may strike as a bit odd on a first viewing — and the story itself of course is the wildest flight of fantasy — but that's what movies are all about: the unusual, the fantastic, the imaginatively weird, the extravagantly bizarre.All told, an absolute stunner.OTHER VIEWS: Lucien Hubbard was a fascinating producer. He started off as a writer and I've no doubt he contributed to the script of his every production. He certainly did on Ebb Tide on which I worked for him. He had a wildly extravagant imagination and he used to fill his script with phrases like, "Ten thousand horsemen ride through towering cliffs into a ten-mile-long deserted canyon." The studio would be looking at a week's work and half the picture's budget to realize this shot on the screen — and then it would last for only ten seconds anyway! — Ray Milland. For his efforts on "Murder in the Private Car" (which fully justifies Milland's description), Lucien Hubbard was rewarded with a prestige "A" for William Randolph Heart's Cosmopolitan Productions (then attached to M-G-M), "Operator 13", starring Marion Davies and Gary Cooper. Unfortunately the film was only modestly successful (mainly due to Miss Davies' waning popularity) and Hubbard soon found himself back in the "B" hive.

One thing you can say for sure, it certainly is not a rip-off of "The Thin Man" or any other big budget murder mystery of its time.The scene opens on two switchboard operators busy at work at an investment firm - Ruth Raymond and Georgia Latham (Mary Carlisle and Una Merkel). One day an investigator informs Ruth that she is the long lost daughter of a wealthy man. She is to be whisked away via a private car to New York to meet her father. She asks her friend and coworker, Georgia, to come along too, and thus the adventure begins.Onboard the train the bodies start piling up, there is a mysterious invisible voice telling Ruth she has only hours to live, and there are doubts raised as to whether or not she is the long lost daughter of the wealthy man in the first place. Along for the ride is the long-time boyfriend of Ruth, as well as a goofy fellow, Godfrey Scott (Charles Ruggles), who has taken a shine to Georgia before all of this mystery began and appointed himself investigator of the case. There are escaped primates in assorted sizes and also a plot device that reminds me of the "Wild Wild West" TV show.Ruggles' act can get tiresome depending on how big a dose is injected into a particular movie, but there is so much going on here that I really didn't think him more of a hindrance than a help, plus the building relationship between himself and Merkel's character is adorable. I'd recommend it if you're in the mood for a rather offbeat film that is certainly very atypical output for MGM of the period.

Murder in the Private Car (1934) ** (out of 4)MGM murder/mystery has Una Merkel playing a woman who is identified as a baby who was kidnapped fourteen years earlier. Now, as an adult, her father has paid for her to come home to him so she gets on a train where a stranger tells her she only has eight hours to live. Charles Ruggles plays a small-time detective who tries to keep the girl alive long enough to meet her father. Only God is certain on how many of these mysteries I've seen over the years and they are all mostly average with a few that manage to be quite good movies. This one here thankfully just runs 63-minutes but it's pretty lifeless through each of those minutes. The biggest problem is that the film goes for far too many laughs, which wouldn't be a problem if they were actually funny. Since they are all unfunny it really drags the film down and makes all the characters quite annoying. Ruggles just doesn't work as the leading man as his humor is very annoying and he really can't keep the film moving. Merkel is good in her role, although it's certainly not written too well. And yes, there's a gorilla who shows up to scare everyone. I'm still trying to figure out why all of these mysteries from the silent era to the 1940s featured a gorilla.

Seldom will the words "what were they thinking?!" come to mind while enjoying a film as often as while watching this pseudo-mystery from the early days of sound at MGM - though not as early as the haphazard writing would suggest.Enjoy it you will, however, as the odds and ends the entertainment are assembled from are largely quality remainders, borrowed from all kinds of other films than the mystery the title leads one to expect. Who knows what the original mystery play ("The Rear Car") the film is based on was really like? It lacked sufficient merit to make it to Broadway (neither did "Everybody Comes To Rick's," but that didn't seem to hurt CASABLANCA much), but the stagy "thriller" aspects of the center part of the film suggest that the tossed in ingredients didn't hurt it any.Chief among the "tossed in" ingredients is Charlie Ruggles' Godfrey Scott, a supposed "detective" occupied far more with the kind of bumbling burlesque comedy Ruggles had been perfecting since his movie debut back in 1914 (and would continue to mine right up until his death in 1970). By the 1930's Ruggles was a well recognized Hollywood commodity in such hits as Brandon Thomas' CHARLEY'S AUNT, THE SMILING LIEUTENANT, LOVE ME TONIGHT and ALICE IN WONDERLAND. MURDER IN THE PRIVATE CAR must have seemed a decidedly second tier assignment to the comedian, but he gave it his all . . . though the biggest laugh in the script may come in the credits - "Edgar Allan Woolf," one of the co-writers was clearly named after Edgar Allan POE, the founder of the modern mystery format with his "C. Auguste Dupin stories in the 1840's! So much for legitimate mystery credentials in this film.The silly plot (a lost heiress found and at risk) had already been the subject of too many musicals and farces to be taken entirely seriously, and the film makers don't spend to much time seriously laying out the clues and red herrings even though the golden age of the murder mystery was near its peak. Instead, they pull out the stops with cinema-friendly special effects like runaway trains and (never explained) secret panels.It starts and remains a supremely silly hodge podge, but fun nonetheless for all but the serious mystery fan the title seems to want to attract. Watch for Ruggles and Una Merkle, and don't worry so much about the title murder(s) and a good time is to be had.