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The Hurricane Express

16 votes

The Wrecker wrecks trains on the L & R Railroad. One of his victims is Larry Baker's father. Baker wants to find the evildoer, among a host of suspects, but it will be difficult since the Wrecker can disguise himself to look like almost anyone

Status: Released

Released Date: 1932-08-01

Runtime: 79 mins

Director: J.P. McGowan, Armand Schaefer

Spoken language: English

Genres: Adventure, Mystery, Crime, Action

Original title: The Hurricane Express

Production Companies: Mascot Pictures

Production Countries: United States of America

Cast

The Air Pilot

John Wayne

The Railroad Manager

Tully Marshall

The Railroad Attorney

Conway Tearle

The Secretary

Shirley Grey

The Secretary's Father

Edmund Breese

The Air Line Manager

Lloyd Whitlock

The Station Agent

Al Bridge

The Engineer Jordan

Matthew Betz

The Railroad Detective

Joseph W. Girard

The Railroad Detective's Assistant

James P. Burtis

Ernie Adams

Charles King

J. Farrell MacDonald

Al Ferguson

Reviews

Geronimo1967

John Wayne is "Larry", an airline pilot who only just manages to land his plane in a field and rush to the scene of a railway accident in which his father, the driver, has perished. He is livid and when he discovers that this was sabotage, he determines to track down the culprit. Meantime we discover just who is behind these attacks - but that he has quite a legitimate axe to grind against an all-conquering railroad that rode rough shod over people and townships alike during it's construction. There's no doubt as to the conclusion of this feature film - a condensed version that is based around the first few and the last few parts of a twelve part serialisation, and it is largely filmed as if it were a silent movie with a sound effects disc running efficiently now and again in the background to liven it up. What dialogue there is, is delivered in a seriously stilted fashion suggesting the actors were reading cue cards just out of shot and so isn't the most natural. The photography is basic, but it's also quite exciting at times when it's on the trains and we are whizzing around at speed. I don't think this abridged version is particularly good nor memorable but I do reckon it could have made for quite an entertaining week-to-week serial with cliffhanger endings each time. It's watchable as a piece of low-budget cinema nostalgia - it illustrates gently that just as the plane is overtaking the train, sound movies are overtaking the silent ones.

2023-11-08

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