Harmless little programmer, one of those comic-laced thrillers so popular at the time, most of them now looking awfully short on laughs & mystery. The silly tale sees Mary Carlisle’s pretty switchboard operator discover she’s an heiress, the long lost daughter of a railroad tycoon. Taking a private train car to meet 'Dad,' along with office pal Una Merkel, Charles Ruggles’ nosey private investigator from the floor above, and her boyfriend, they’re soon dodging bullets, knives and dangerous runaway circus animals! Wha? Fading journeyman director Harry Beaumont follows a beat or two behind the action, while top-billed Ruggles struggles to put over bad puns & spoonerisms. Spoonerisms! (And if you think ‘Snowflake’ as the train’s black porter doesn’t get spooked by a ghostly white bed sheet, you got another think coming.) But then, suddenly, the mad avenger behind all the danger uncouples the private car, turning it into runaway death trap! This finale, a one-reel set piece, a veritable compendium of every optical & process film trick available at the time. Designed and edited for maximum effect, still packing a wallop. So, who the heck is responsible for this bit of filmic legerdemain? Surely not director Beaumont, a placid fellow at best; and the two second-unit M-G-M directors have mighty thin credits. The only possibility is uncredited set designer Fred Gabourie, famous for working with Buster Keaton on most of the great comedian’s shorts & features right up to Buster’s superb M-G-M debut with THE CAMERAMAN/’28.* If only M-G-M had kept him on Buster’s film team, those Early Talkies might have been less dire affairs.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Take a trip with Gabourie back to Buster’s independent beginnings on one of his best shorts, ONE WEEK/’20, featuring loads of Gabourie engineered stunts including a famous (uproarious) smash train finale. Though, of course, this being a Buster Keaton production, no camera fakery whatsoever.
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