Mystery Liner

1934 Mystery 62 minutes Directed by William Nigh

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About Mystery Liner

Captain John Holling (Noah Beery) is taken off his ship after a nervous breakdown. Captain Downey (Boothe Howard) takes the liner to sea for a test of Professor Grimson's device, which can steer the ship from a laboratory on land. While Grimson demonstrates it, a rival group listens in and means to use the control for itself. An inspector, Von Kessling (Gustav von Seyffertitz), is aboard with the passengers.

Cast & crew

More about Mystery Liner

William Nigh directed it for Monogram from Edgar Wallace's story "The Ghost of John Holling," first published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1924. Archie Stout photographed it and Carl Pierson edited it. Monogram also distributed it.

Themes

  • a captain removed from his bridge
  • a ship steered from land
  • someone else listening in
  • ocean liner
  • remote control
  • Edgar Wallace
  • Professor Grimson
  • Monogram
  • nervous breakdown

Background

Released in March 1934, late in the pre-Code period, as a Monogram programmer rather than a major-studio picture.

Making

A Poverty Row feature at Monogram, built around a remote-control ship and a Wallace mystery, and then sent to the Venice exhibition as well as to ordinary U.S. programs.

Reviews

Leonard Maltin called it an intriguing but slow-paced B-picture. Allmovie described a science-fiction thriller and murder mystery from Monogram, and credited Archie Stout's photography. TV Guide called it a well-made thriller from the programmer line and noted Stout's camerawork.

Look

Archie Stout photographed the shipboard sets and the laboratory scenes for Monogram. Later reviewers singled out that photography on an otherwise cheap picture.

Notes

  • It was entered as a feature at the 1934 International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art in Venice, the event that became the Venice Film Festival.
  • Gabby Hayes plays Joe, the watchman. George Cleveland plays the steward Simms.
  • Astrid Allwyn plays Lila Kane, Edwin Maxwell plays Major Pope, and Cornelius Keefe plays First Officer Cliff Rogers.
  • Zeffie Tilbury plays Granny Plimpton.
  • Archie Stout later shared the Academy Award for cinematography on The Quiet Man (1952).

Scenes

  • Holling is relieved of command after his breakdown.
  • Professor Grimson runs the liner from a shore laboratory while a rival group listens.

Influenced by

  • Edgar Wallace's "The Ghost of John Holling" (1924)

Also available

  • Internet Archive (MysteryLiner)

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