The Mystery Train (1931) is a clunky, weirdly fun train wreck

If you have about an hour to kill and you don't mind a movie that looks like it was filmed inside a very large shoe box, then The Mystery Train might be for you. It is definitely for people who like those old "creaky" mysteries where everyone wears a suit even when they are committing crimes. If you need 4K resolution and a plot that makes 100% sense, you will probably hate this. 🚂

The whole thing starts with Marian and William. They are managing Ronald's huge fortune, but they aren't very good people. They want to skim some of that money for themselves. Honestly, their plan is so over-complicated it's almost funny.

They find this girl named Joan who is a convict on the run. They decide to make her their "protege" so Ronald falls for her. It's one of those movie romances that happens in about four seconds. One minute they are strangers, the next they are basically soulmates. It reminds me a bit of the fast-paced romance in The Love Piker, though maybe a bit more cynical.

The Train is the Star

Most of the movie happens on the train, obviously. The sets are pretty basic. You can tell they are just standing in a room that someone is occasionally shaking to make it feel like it's moving. It’s charming in a weird way.

The sound in this movie is... loud. Early talkies always have that hum in the background. It makes the whole thing feel like you're listening to a secret recording from a basement. It’s much less polished than something like The Sorrowful Song of the Sea, but it has more energy.

Hedda Hopper is in this! Before she became the queen of gossip columns, she was actually acting. She has this way of looking at people like they are a bug she’s about to squash. I spent most of the time just looking at her hats. They are enormous.

• The way the convict, Joan, tries to act "posh" is hilarious.
• There is a scene with a jewelry box that goes on way too long.
• Ronald is kind of a dimwit, but he’s a nice dimwit.

The plot gets really messy once the jewels come into play. There’s a lot of running back and forth between train cars. People keep popping in and out of doors like they are in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. It’s high burstiness, for sure. One second it's a romance, the next it’s a heist, then it’s a comedy with Al Cooke.

I noticed that the lighting in the train corridors is super dark. I don't know if that was on purpose or if they just ran out of lightbulbs that day. It adds a bit of spookiness that the script doesn't actually have. It's a lot lighter in tone than Some Tomboy, which feels weird to say given there's a convict on the lam here.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Mystery Train (1931) through its definitive frames.

The writing is credited to Hampton Del Ruth and Phil Whitman. You can tell they liked jokes that involve people falling over. It’s not exactly Shakespeare. But it works for what it is. It’s the kind of movie you’d see at a matinee in 1931 and forget by the time you got home, except for maybe the train whistle sound.

One reaction shot of Bryant Washburn lingers for so long I thought my screen froze. He just stares. For like, ten seconds. It’s amazing. It makes you wonder what the director was thinking or if they just liked his face that much. It’s much more awkward than the acting in Looking for Sally.

Is it actually a mystery?

Not really. You know who the bad guys are from the first five minutes. The mystery is mostly "how long will it take Ronald to realize he's being played?" The answer is: a while. He's very busy being in love.

There's this one guy, Spec O'Donnell, who shows up and just brings this weird energy to his scenes. He feels like he wandered in from a different movie. Maybe a comedy short. It's these little pockets of weirdness that make The Mystery Train worth sitting through. It’s definitely better than some of the drier stuff from that era, like White Pants Willie, which can be a bit of a slog.

"We have to get those jewels, William. No matter what happens on this track."

That’s not an actual quote, but it’s basically what they say every five minutes. The stakes feel high to them, but to us, it’s just a bunch of people in fancy clothes arguing in a hallway. And I love that. It’s very human. You can see the actors trying to keep their balance on the "moving" train.

The ending happens very fast. Like they realized they only had two minutes of film left and had to wrap everything up. Boom. Everyone is where they belong. The bad guys get what's coming to them. Ronald and Joan probably live happily ever after, even though she's technically a fugitive. But hey, it's 1931. Laws were different in movies back then.

Overall, it’s a decent little flick. It’s not going to change your life. It’s not a "profound exploration" of anything. It’s just a story about a train and some shiny rocks. Sometimes that is all you need on a Tuesday night. 🎞️

If you're bored, give it a go. Just don't expect the train to actually look like it's going anywhere fast.