Tag Archives: Film Noir

The Tattered Dress 1957

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Universal-International

Let’s take a ride on the Southern Pacific. Many thanks to reader Tony Roberts for sending me an extra Blu-Ray disc of this movie to watch. Today’s feature is a late 1950’s film noir courtroom drama with about six minutes of railroad footage at the beginning. Apologies for the poor quality of the screen caps in this review. I plead extenuating circumstances.

The Espee was quite cooperative, renting a set of passenger train equipment, a pair of diesel locomotives and two, separate passenger stations for filmmakers to use. Not to mention “track and time”. ;p It looks like most on-board footage was on actual passenger cars with rear screen projection out the windows.

Actress Elaine Stewart, (seen above playing trophy wife Charleen Reston), provides the cheesecake in her “tattered dress” and although she doesn’t appear in any train scenes, she’s bound to show up somewhere in this review. What a Lark!

Hotshot New York lawyer Jim Blane (played by Jeff Chandler) has arrived in town to get a local crook off the murder charge. The townsfolk are not pleased. Note the Southern Pacific sleeping car in the background.

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Two Smart People 1946

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Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Many Thanks to Tony Wilson for recommending this flick. Today’s feature is a post-war film noir taking place on a Southern Pacific Railroad train from Los Angeles to New Orleans.

John Hodiak (as Ace Connors) and Lucille Ball (as Ricki Woodner) star alongside Lloyd Nolan as NYC Policeman Bob Simms. You see, Ace is a bond swindler/con artist and Ricki is a flashy redhead with a jaded past. Officer Bob is on their tail looking for those fake bonds. To further complicate this triangle, Ace and Bob are old friends — just on opposite sides of the law.

Now. Where do you suppose Ace is HIDING those bonds? Well, you’ll just have to read this review and find out.

How about a nice, hot cup of tea? Most Noir pictures are loaded with symbolism. Case in point: Notice all the stripes (simulating prison bars). These two are definitely up to no good!

It’s probably on a studio set, but very nice-looking railroad lounge car interior.

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Peking Express 1951

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Paramount Pictures

Remake! Today’s movie review changes direction (now Shanghai to Peking) and heavily copies 1932’s Shanghai Express including reusing several train shots from that film.

This film noir feature is a rather tepid affair, starring Joseph Cotton as Doctor Michael Bachlin and Corinne Calvet as Danielle Grenier. Still, there are some redeeming parts including a train-Jeep chase at the end, with guns a blazing.

It’s a mish-mosh of Southern Pacific Railroad locomotives and equipment done up with Chinese characters. Let’s check it out!

“Looks like Charlie Chan up there, man!” Nope. It’s white boy Marvin Miller, as the mysterious Kwon onboard the Tientsen-Pukow train, sporting heavy-duty Hollywood Oriental makeup. More about him later.

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Murder is my Beat 1955

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Allied Artists Productions

I first heard about this B noir picture from reader Tony Wilson. As I researched, I discovered a good copy on both archive.org and YouTube. The film features at least 3 different Southern Pacific Railroad steam locomotives pulling various heavyweight and streamlined passenger equipment.

It’s a relatively short flick at just 77 minutes, but there are two train sequences at the 31 minute and 70 minute marks packed full of onboard and train exterior goodness. I had a great time discovering the equipment used — made harder by B&W night-time footage. And there might just be a little cheesecake in there for our more mature readers.

Let’s go ride “The Friendly” Southern Pacific!

Churning, spoked drivers roll along an impeccably-groomed roadbed…which segues into this shot of a steamer pulling a 5 car passenger train down a weed-choked right-of-way.

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Appointment With Danger 1950

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Paramount Pictures

Let’s hear it for the Post Office! Or to quote from the film’s opening with triumphant march music playing in the background: “We’re proud of our Post Office, because we have confidence in its efficiency”. Well, things have changed a bit since 1950, but back in the day….

Many thanks to reader Mark Herrmann who tipped me off about this film noir goodie. After purchasing the DVD, I researched it and discovered train scenes filmed in Indiana AND Southern California. In addition to Alan Ladd (who plays the tough-as-nails Postal Inspector, Al Goddard), there are small parts played by Jack Webb (“My name’s Friday”) and Harry Morgan as two gang henchmen. That’s Al stepping off the caboose above.

As always, I’m gonna concentrate on the railroad pulchritude and leave the plot and gangster genre for others who may follow. C’mon, let’s check out trains from NYC, Pere Marquette, C&NW, Pennsylvania and Union Pacific railroads!

Gary (Indiana) Union Station was a beautiful structure when constructed in 1910 – as well as a pivotal plot point in this movie. Located between the New York Central and Baltimore & Ohio mainlines, both roads were served by this two-story edifice.

In these two views, we get a look inside and out of the passenger terminal. The depot still exists, but is literally a shell of its former self. That’s a 1949 Checker Cab (Thanks, big brother Mark!).

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Sudden Fear 1952

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RKO Radio Pictures

A cross country train trip on a through sleeping car is the highlight of today’s feature. Believe it or not, back in the 1950’s, you could ride from New York City to Chicago, then on to San Francisco (Oakland) in the same sleeping car. Other railroads also offered similar coast to coast service.

What we see on screen (and out the window) is a wonderful mish-mosh of various railroads — some that would definitely NOT be on our movie’s NYC – Burlington – D&RGW – WP routing.

Myra Hudson (played by Joan Crawford) is a successful playwright whose smash hit is running on Broadway. Whilst riding the train out of New York, she spots Lester Blaine (played by Jack Palance) boarding at an intermediate stop. Myra had rather abruptly dismissed Lester from her play. Well. This might be a touch uncomfortable.

Palance turned in a wonderfully-creepy performance in this picture and Crawford… oh, those scary eyebrows. No wonder she wound up portrayed in the campy horror classic, Mommie Dearest. “Tina!! Bring me the axe!”

Anyway. It’s film noir on a train and that’s always a winner. Remember The Narrow Margin, anyone?

Can’t have a noir flick without smoke. Through the haze we see the studio’s recreation of Grand Central Terminal.

Note in the background, Track 25: Commodore Vanderbilt (Train 67) and Track 24: State of Maine Express. Myra would have taken Train 67 which carried the through 10-6 sleeper.

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Across the Bridge 1957

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The Rank Organization

Carl Schaffner (played by Rod Steiger) is a British financier in New York City who is into his company for about $9 million. As details emerge of his embezzlement, Rod/Carl decides to take it on the lam. Thus, he heads down to Pennsylvania Station taking a sleeper on the first train to Texas and eventually Mexico.

Interestingly enough, the Pennsylvania Railroad had a train, the Penn Texas, which ran from New York to St. Louis, MO with connecting sleepers on the Missouri Pacific to Dallas, TX and from there on the Texas and Pacific (a Mopac subsidiary) to El Paso, TX.

This being a British film, most of the interiors were shot in Shepperton Studios with exteriors of American railroad scenes (mostly in the dark) thrown in for good measure.

Train scenes are only present for 20 minutes, but it was enjoyable to hunt down pictures and identify the locomotives shown. Let’s get onboard with shyster Schaffner as he makes a run for it.

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The Pullman Porter has his suspicions about the cranky old guy in Bedroom C.

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Grand Central Murder 1942

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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Mostly filmed on the MGM lot in Culver City, Grand Central Murder is the tale of a Broadway stage actress who uses and discards people like Kleenex — until someone snaps and bumps her off. But who dunnit? And how? There’s not a mark on her. There IS a list of suspects a mile long.

And oh, what a set. MGM spared no expense using actual railroad passenger cars and a passable recreation of Grand Central Terminal’s underground high-level platforms and third-rail infrastructure. Southern Pacific Railroad’s subsidiary Pacific Electric served Culver City and you can briefly see SP EMD NW2 switcher #1315 shuffling cars around during a couple scenes.

As always, I’ll concentrate on the train bits, but the movie itself is well worth an evening’s viewing. All Aboard!

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Van Heflin (as “Rocky” Custer) checks out the heavyweight Pullman named, “Thanatopsis” for this picture. If you clink the link in the previous sentence, you’ll see it’s a not-so-subtle reference to what takes place on board.

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