Seven Sinners (1936)

Simply Perfect

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Edmund Lowe was not an especially handsome man, but he had a nice, carefree acting style that I have always found endearing. Because of this, even a relatively routine film like "Doomed Cargo" is well worth watching. In this film, Lowe is ably assisted by Constance Cummings--another American actor--though she later specialized in making British films and moved to the UK for good.The movie begins in an odd way--Lowe is dressed as a devil for a party and his tail is shut in a door--and he cannot move. But that's not the only thing weird about this party, as Lowe finds a dead man--and no one believes him because when they return the corpse is gone. But, to make things even weirder, after a train wreck, Lowe finds this same body among the dead in the wreckage! It seems someone went to a lot of trouble to disguise this as an accident. The film eventually leads to the trail of arms merchants and it's up to Lowe and Cummings to work it all out--with lots of witty repartee along the way. Smooth, easy-going and fun--this is a better B-mystery film--reasonably well written and enjoyable.

American stars Edmund Lowe and Constance Cummings went over to Great Britain to film this Hitchcock like mystery thriller in 1936. Lowe went back to the USA, but Ms. Cummings stayed in Great Britain where she resided for the rest of her career.Lowe is a private detective and Cummings works for an insurance company and both are trying to find a killer whose method of homicide is to either wreck trains to kill somebody or to cause a wreck to hide the body of someone he's already killed.In a manner like Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint from North By Northwest, Lowe and Cummings exchange some very witty dialog. Other Hitchcock pictures that you will see elements of here in Seven Sinners are The Thirty Nine Steps, The Lady Vanishes, and Foreign Correspondent.This wrecker is a pretty clever guy and it is only in the final minutes that our intrepid heroes realize who it is. And I don't think the audience will realize it either.All that's missing is Alfred Hitchcock's portly cameo.

Neil-117 is quite correct, the film makers were given permission by the Southern Railway to smash an old locomotive and carriages into a lorry on a disused branch line, hence the spectacular train crash.I think his other comments are a little unfair. The film is taken from a play called 'The Wrecker' by Arnold Ridley (who also wrote 'The Ghost Train' and later became Private Godfrey in 'Dad's Army'). The whole point of the plot is that a serial murderer is staging train crashes to disguise his crimes.Of course the film is dated but it's good, well-paced entertainment. If you enjoy Hitchcock's British thrillers (especially 'The Lady Vanishes', also a Launder and Gilliatt screenplay) you'll like this one.

Mildly amusing scenario of US private detective and female insurance investigator battling for supremacy in solving a series of murders in Europe. Will they kiss and make up in the end? The bad guys are suitably sinister and new ones keep popping up just when you thought you had it all figured out. The script writer must have been short on inspiration as the same device of a train wreck is used no less than three times. But those action sequences are well filmed and I'd swear one of the crashing steam locomotives is the real thing.