Ed Harwood, a wisecracking private investigator from New York, discovers a crime at a hotel in Nice during a carnival. The unraveling of the mystery which lies behind will lead him and Caryl Fenton, a female insurance agent, who will become his companion, first to Paris, then to London, later through the English countryside and finally to Southampton, in search of a criminal train wrecker.
Acting
Edmund Lowe's rapid-fire delivery could teach Aaron Sorkin a thing or two.
Practical Effects
Real locomotive destruction — they actually crashed a train for this.
Costume
Caryl's travel wardrobe is a masterclass in 1930s glamour under pressure.
Director
Albert de Courville
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Edmund Lowe and Constance Cummings had such electric chemistry here that studios immediately tried to lock them into a Thin Man-style franchise — it never happened.
This was one of the last British thrillers before the Hays Code influence fully crossed the Atlantic, so the drinking and moral ambiguity feel almost shockingly casual for 1936.
GB
