On the night express train from Los Angeles to San Francisco everyone’s a suspect when a jewelry magnate is found stabbed to death and an escaped killer is feared on board. It’s up to newspaper reporter Jimmy Hawley (Ben Lyon) to unravel the secrets of the motley group of passengers and find the killer before he strikes again in this tense and atmospheric whodunit.
Direction
Stoloff squeezes maximum claustrophobia from cramped train sets.
Acting
Lyon's fast-talking reporter archetype before the Hays Code tamed him.
Director
Benjamin Stoloff
Ben Lyon
Jimmy Hawley
Barbara Weeks
Alice Murray
Kenneth Thomson
Chambers
Ethel Kenyon
Eileen Ayensworth
William V. Mong
Graham
Nat Pendleton
'Killer' Delmar
Tom Dugan
Drunk
Dwight Frye
Chick Lewis
Billy Bletcher
Police Radio Dispatcher (uncredited) (unconfirmed)
Kit Guard
Trainman (uncredited)
William Halligan
Detective (uncredited)
DeWitt Jennings
City Editor (uncredited)
Eddie Kane
Eileen's Accomplice (uncredited)
Martha Mattox
Spinster Train Passenger (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The train crash footage was lifted from 1927's 'The Jazz Singer' — Warner Bros. loved recycling expensive destruction.
Released months before the Hays Code enforcement, this is pre-code murder: on-screen stabbing, unmarried cohabitation suggestions, and a reporter who'd rather solve crimes than file stories.
US
