User reviews

This is the kind of low rent movie Monogram was justifiably famous for when they weren't making no budget westerns. Secret agents, secret passages, etc.

This one has to do with a government project to control ships at sea with a radio control device called S505. In order to test the device, the scientific team installs it in a cruise ship with the cooperation of the captain and his staff. This was 1934 and we didn't actually have an enemy, so Monogram created a "foreign power" as the antagonist, and installed a couple of agents aboard the ship to steal the main component of the device and sabotage the experiment. We spend the rest of the picture trying to figure out who is who - and there really are secret passages.

Monogram, as was their practice, cast this picture with fading stars and familiar character actors. This effort stars Noah Beery although he only shows up at the beginning and end of the show. The real "star" is Edwin Maxwell, supported by George Cleveland and Gustav Von Seyffertitz. You get the picture.

I won't go any further into the story. It is a pretty formulaic spy yarn you could find on any double bill in any cheap theater back in the old days. But there are those of us that really love them. In fact, although I live in New Mexico, I recently made a pilgrimage to Hollywood. Not for the usual reasons, but to track back the homes and locations of my favorite old time actors and the locations of all those Poverty Row studios of the day. I actually found the original office address of Monogram at the wrong end of Sunset Blvd. I'm afraid most devotees would be disappointed to find that the actual address is occupied by a take out chicken joint. The sound stages across the street are now occupied by what appears to be a television station. I didn't care. I was standing on hallowed ground. I could imagine "The Duke", (whose ranch location I also visited in Encino) driving through the gate in his Chrysler Phantom.

The movie has a predictable ending, but the trip there is still entertaining. I have a brother who probably wouldn't appreciate it because it doesn't have a message, it doesn't have a basso thematic orchestration with all the bells and gongs, and it doesn't excite the viewer with sweeping visual images. But for the rest of us peasants, it rounds out the weekend just like grilled bratwurst, potato salad and beer.

And that is saying something for these mysteries from the 30s that usually have plots that are so muddled that you are constantly having to rewind to figure out what is going on.

Though Mr. Beery is at the top of the cast list, his onscreen time is minimal - opening and closing scenes. The rest of the cast split the screen time about evenly.

A ship's Captain is relieved of duty for medical reasons. His first officer takes over as Captain while the ship carries out an experiment in remote control by use of special equipment previously installed. A remote land base will take over when in open waters.

Though it appears as if this ship is a passenger cruise liner with many people boarding and waving off with streamers as it leaves dock, it is depicted as a cargo ship as it exits the harbor. The story brings only a few passengers to our attention as it unravels. Mostly it's the Captain(s), crew, and an investigator - along with some short scenes of an unnamed enemy group attempting to sieze control of the ship by means of their own remote system.

There are no notable performances or personalities just an espionage/murder-mystery which reveals itself nicely leaving no loose ends.

The most interesting scenes were those of the experimental equipment. They made noises like those in Henry Frankenstein's laboratory - vaguely resembled them visually. Popping, crackling, buzzing. Also, the iPad-like message transmitter, by which you write your message in handwriting script using a stylus - it appears nearly instantly onscreen at the receiver's end.

The story in this B-feature has some fairly interesting developments, and it makes the movie just worth watching despite a very slow pace and some other weaknesses. The acting performances vary in quality from solid to weak, and the production is adequate most of the time. So in most respects it is a typical B-movie of its era, but the story offered some possibilities that might have furnished the basis of a better movie.

The story starts with a liner preparing to test a Professor's device for using remote-control to guide the ship from a laboratory. The experiment is complicated by the captain's nervous breakdown and by an on-board murder. The ship also contains numerous passengers, some with various eccentricities and others with some suspicious characteristics. While the setup could have been taken in a number of different directions, the way it actually develops is probably as good as any.

One of the main things that keeps it from being better is that too many of the key characters never take form, remaining uninteresting and one-dimensional. Likewise, the dialogue never approaches the interest level of the story. And too often, things move very slowly, making it seem longer than the running time.

On the plus side, it maintains the mystery level rather well, and it does hold your attention. The atmosphere is not always maintained, but for much of the time the shipboard setting is used fairly well. More than anything, the remote-control idea is used in a way that was rather creative for its era, and it almost provides enough interest in itself to make you keep watching.

Professor Grimson invents a device which can power a liner by remote control. Obviously enemy spies would love to get ahold of the device and send an agent to mix among the various vacationers unnoticed while he or she sabotaged the ship. The inventor is strangled and the crew must wait until the steering experiment is proven a success before the saboteur strikes, and what has this all to do with the ship's captain, Holling taking ill right before the ship is to depart. Very shoddy script and direction send this one to Davy Jones locker. The first 45 minutes is describing parts of the mechanism, then introducing the passengers and watching them mingle with each other before anything remotely interesting happens at the end, which last about three minutes, and seems so out of place with the pace of the earlier footage. Not good, even by Monogram standards. Zeffie Tilbury is annoying as the old lady looking for romance. Only plus for this film for me, was that, as always, Astrid Allwyn looked cute as a button. Edwin Maxwell and Gustav Von Seyffertitz lend a sinister presence. Rating- 3.

One reviewer here made some sardonic remarks and referred to this being a "Grade C" Hollywood product. If thats so, I'd hate to see what "Grade D" looks like. Normally, I can find simple enjoyments in even the lowest budgeted films of this period. I like many of the early 'Thirties films from the cheapo studios, but this is one I have no idea who it could appeal to. Forget the premise, it's all nonsense.

Only if your curious what Zeffie "Mama Joad" Tilbury was up to at this early stage in her career, would I excuse you for watching this . Old stalwart of the silent era, Gustav von Seyffertitz, is the only one of the main characters, who doesn't completely make a fool of himself.

Most of the performers look like they're acting through a thick gelatinous liquid, with such painful back and forth gestures. It looks like the director was either shouting at them in several different languages, or had them drugged.

By the 52nd minute (it felt like 92nd) Mrs. Tilbury flops in her cabin with the exhausted remark: "I've never been so bored in my life". The films one irrefutable, unintentional laugh.

Mystery Liner has to be one of the very few times that the senior Noah Beery ever headed a cast list. He had to go to Monogram Pictures to have this happen and the results are somewhat indifferent.

Edgar Wallace novels are usually sources of material for film, but in this case they didn't really get down to business until the final third of the film. Someone has invented a remote control steering device for ships and so while this is peacetime, it's decided to test it on a passenger liner. But a mysterious foreign power wants to get this device and the plan is to cut in with their own radio waves and steal the ship. They've fatally injured the inventor Ralph Lewis and a few more people will die before all is revealed.

Beery plays the ship's captain who is stripped of command due to a nervous breakdown and forced into a rest home. But he doesn't show up there and there are sitings of him on the voyage.

A collection of interesting character actors besides Beery make Mystery Liner somewhat enjoyable. Here's a hint though, don't be fooled by some of the obvious casting in deciding who are the good and the bad folks here.

This Edgar Wallace murder mystery takes place aboard an ocean liner being piloted automatically, as everyone and his grandmother is trying to get hold of the tube that pilots the ship without benefit of human hands. Ed Maxwell, veteran of the early silver seen, has a decent role as an investigating private eye. He may remind some of Nero Wolfe. Zeffie Tilbury, as Granny Plympton, a familiar face from Little Rascals shorts, was the most annoying character. No mystery here, and dreadfully acted and sound-produced to boot. It feels like a play transferred directly to Hollywood. Some of the performers would appear to have come right from the NY stage.

After only three years of experience in movie production, Monogram Pictures had already found JUST the recipe that makes up a REAL good B mystery: an inventive, suspenseful Edgar Wallace story, a veteran actor of many a great silent movie, Noah Beery, as the star, and a VERY capable cast of all ages, from a pretty young nurse to an elderly lady who wants to enjoy herself without the 'protection' of her boring grandson, to make the movie REALLY lively! And as setting for this most unusual and entertaining murder/spy story - a steamer used for the first experiment with radio control over ships...

In just a little over an hour, we see about EVERYTHING, from mysterious strangulations to enemy spies' attempts to steal the control device to that good, old-fashioned, fancy 'scientist's equipment' of the 30s, with sparkling tubes and light bulbs that add a 'Buck Rogers'-like touch of science fiction to this lovely little thriller - a FEAST for fans of good old-fashioned 30s' mysteries; and surely at least a nice bit of 'Poverty Row' entertainment for everyone else!

On board this ritzy passenger liner, the ship's control room communicates with a roomful of scientists on shore using a cool two-way Etch-a-sketch style device: You scrawl out your message on a picture screen, and at the other end they see your handwritten message appear just as you wrote it. Pretty neat! Unfortunately, that's probably the most interesting thing about the whole movie.

This B suspense picture features a broad array of standard characters—embattled veteran captain with mysterious health issues (Noah Beery), all-business doctor, pretty blond nurse (Astrid Allwyn) who is being pursued by a rival pair of ship's officers, a firecracker of an old lady who wants to party, a tall and thin mystery traveler (Gustav von Seyffertitz), and a military man (Edwin Maxwell) who quickly appoints himself chief investigator when mysterious events kick in.

The mystery centers around a high tech invention called S-505, which is apparently a tube that will enable a ship to be steered and controlled remotely. The invention is ready to be tested—but look out! because a sinister foreign power is very interested in the device and may have spies aboard.

It all adds up to intrigue, deceit, and even murder….but alas, the actors and plot are sadly defeated by slow pacing, obvious dialog, and just a generally muddled presentation of the whole story. Too bad, because there is a nifty story buried in there somewhere.

This is a bit of a curiosity. I don't know much about Noah Beery, but his name on the top of the bill is interesting. He barely appears in the movie. It's about some secret navigation device for piloting ships by remote control. There is an enemy force that is after it and its inventor. On board an ocean liner, where it is being tested, the captain (Beery) becomes deranged and is replaced. Soon a couple murders take place and the captain is seen by people (though he quickly disappears). There is some device where people communicate using a machine where you write in cursive hand. Of course, radio has been invented. This is so silly. There's also a subplot with he romantic aspirations of an old woman who is utterly insufferable. Her being there contributes nothing but the screeching of nails on a blackboard. There is really no plot and in the end I'm not sure anything was resolved. Not really much of a movie.

Talky mystery that never really gels. Events concern an ocean liner being tested for remote control. Since a successful test will revolutionize warships and naval warfare, the test is being done in secret. Nonetheless, an unnamed foreign power gets wind of the experiment and gets an undercover agent aboard. But which of the many characters is it, and how many will be murdered before the end.

Cheapo Monogram is constrained to film inside cramped ship-board sets, though oddly we never see the supposed water below. And since there's little action or pacing, the narrative fails to crystallize plot potential. Events tend to meander rather than build. I suspect the problem lies with trying to cram too much of the Wallace novel onto the screen On the other hand, the reveal did surprise me, while showing a good twist on the usual. Too bad that imagination didn't extend to directing and lighting.

Though Beery headlines--probably for marquee reasons--he has little screen time. Instead, rotund Maxwell carries the plot as a self-appointed sleuth. I guess the aged Tilbury is supposed to be comedy relief, likely because lanky Jerry Stewart proves so inept. Too bad her over-acting hits more of a sour note than a funny bone.

Anyway, I didn't dislike the results as much as many others. Still, it's an easily forgettable entry among that decade's slew of cheap whodunnits.

It is totally incomprehensible at best. The wooden acting, the cardboard figures along with the poor setting make this a movie to be viewed only if you revel in C grade movies (as I do). There is a semblance of a plot- I have seen this 70 years after it was made and the technology aspect can be discounted. The rubbish backgrounds can't. It is difficult enough following the plot when due to the black and white colour, and similarity of dress, the characters tend to blend. When you combine that with blackouts and seemingly Nazi characters it becomes really unbalanced.

I can't see one actor in the film who would look back on this and be happy.

The mental break down of a ships captain happens about the same time a means of remotely steering ships comes into existence. The Captain is locked away and escapes just as a murder is committed.

And the audience snores.

This is one of the dullest movies I've ever seen. Its a sure cure for insomnia even for small yappie dogs on triple espresso.

This is just boring...really really boring and should I go to hell it will be a movie theater I can't leave that plays this movie for eternity.

Amazingly I find I can't give it a one out of ten because its not bad, its just dull, which somehow isn't the same thing. I don't know why, but I gave it a three, probably because its such a good sleep aid that it does serve some cosmic purpose.

Even so I wouldn't want to ever see it again.

The only reason I will give this move a 2 instead of a 1 is because it was done in English. And I'm not sure if I should give them credit for that, or be forgiving them for the fact.

This is a simply awful movie. The story is really stupid. The characters are annoying, each and every one. The sets are cheap and cheesy. In that way, this movie resembles Plan 9 From Outer Space - cheap, cheesy sets. A typical grade school could duplicate this movie on an auditorium stage.

It's boring. The only time it's not boring is when it's annoying. There is barely a hint that this story even takes place on a ship - I was hoping maybe for occasional period stock footage from an ocean liner but of course that would have pushed them over their $100 budget.

If this movie comes on, find something more interesting to do. Paint your trash cans or learn to play tissue paper and comb. This movie is flat out awful. Do I make myself clear?

If you are a film addict like myself, then by all means watch "Mystery Liner"--otherwise do yourself a favor and skip this limp little film. There just isn't a lot to like about the movie and it features some amazingly bad acting.

The plot for this film is in some ways quite interesting and it's sort of like sci-fi. Although it's apparently set around 1934, the scientific experiments in the film are rather far-fetched. A scientist has created a radio-controlled device for ships. Such things are possible today, but back then it was pretty amazing stuff--as was the odd writing device that you just need to see to believe. Well, 'the enemy' wants the vacuum tube used to control the ship and they will stop at nothing to get it--even if it means killing. Once bad things start happening, the film becomes very much like a B-mystery film and I could have easily seen Charlie Chan in such a film. HOWEVER, unlike a Chan film, this one just isn't that entertaining--mostly because the dialog and acting (especially the acting) is often pretty crappy. The comic relief (common in such a film) isn't all that funny, either. Overall, a strange film because of its scientific angles--otherwise, pretty limp and uninteresting.

Something about this one I like - it's refreshing and entertaining for me. The story is pretty good it's about a radio controlled ship and it's strange passengers but someone on-board is a murderer - but who? I liked Granny best - she has her eyes out for a man! She sure likes flirt with the guys and had me laughing at her ways. She turned out to be the highlight for me and when the film started I thought she was going to irritate me but it was quite the opposite.

The rest of the cast is great as well, most of them are likable and enjoyable to watch in the film.

Overall a good afternoon film with a mystery to try to solve and a few giggles along the way.

7/10

After "Captain John Holling" (Noah Beery) suffers a nervous breakdown a new officer by the name of "Captain Downey" (Boothe Howard) is given the command of a passenger liner until such time as the other captain can return. The real story however concerns the implementation of an experimental remote guidance system which another nation is determined to steal or sabotage at all costs. So when one of the ship's crew is murdered and the inventor of the device who goes by the name of "Professor Grimson" (Ralph Lewis) is similarly attacked, a specially chosen investigator named "Major Pope" (Edwin Maxwell) is appointed to gather the facts and to prevent any further acts of this nature. In the meantime, the experiment is reaching a critical point and the last test of its effectiveness hangs in the balance. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a rather short film (only 62 minutes) which condensed quite of bit mystery and intrigue into the overall story-line. So much so that the film suffered to a certain extent due to the abundance of material presented without the in-depth development needed to adequately present each scenario. Likewise, the science behind the secret experiment was both far-fetched and yet rudimentary as well. However, it should be noted that this film was produced in the middle of the Great Depression--and with the cost of production being a major concern for most movie studios during this time-it was quite typical to have films with short running times. It's just the way things were. Be that as it may, although it certainly could have been better, I have given it the benefit of the doubt and rated it accordingly. Average.

MYSTERY LINER (1934)

* 1/2 (out of four)

The ship is sailing the ocean when bodies begin to pile up. Is it a stowaway? The captain? Another member? The biggest mystery is trying to figure a way to stay awake. Typical overly talkative Monogram film that tries to be mysterious but forgets to be interesting. Monogram was always smart by releasing films very short (usually under 65 minutes) but this film really doesn't have a thing going for it. By the time the movie is over it feels like a grade D film.

Available on DVD through various PD companies.