Prison Train (1938)

Excellent adaptation.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Convicted of murdering a competitor's son, a gangster is sent away on a prison train. Meanwhile, his sister tries to warn him of a plot aboard the train to kill him.For the gangster obsessed 1930's, the story is suspenseful but basically routine. Nevertheless, this low-budget production does have several notable features. For one, there's the movie's visual flair. Director Wiles was an art director before climbing into the big chair, so his often exotic camera angles and lurid lighting are unusual for a low budget production. At the same time, his artistic ambitions are on more elaborate display in 1947's The Gangster with Barry Sullivan. Too bad that he died so young and that IMDb doesn't have more info on this interesting moviemaker.Also, the movie's notable for Dorothy Comingore's presence. I wouldn't be surprised if Orson Welles caught her in this programmer before casting her in his classic Citizen Kane (1941). Here she projects a unique loveliness and sweet vulnerability that's almost touching and quite a distance from her near shrewish role in Kane. Then too, there's Clarence Muse as a waiter and a long way from the buffoonish roles generally assigned black performers in those days. Plus, he even turns out to be a treacherous bad guy. Note too, that lead actor Fred Keating's name doesn't appear on the movie's poster. Granted, he's pretty obscure among the Hollywood crowd, but he does a good job here as head gangster Frankie Terris.I guess my only complaint is Nestor Paiva who does go way over the top, even for this exotic flick, as the needling Morose. All in all, the story may be unexceptional, but there remain unusual aspects that make the production worth catching up with.

Frankie is a big-shot mobster who is in charge of the numbers racket. Another big hood, Manny, works for Frankie. Frankie has a sister who is unaware of his career choice and Manny's boy won't take no for an answer and paws the lady--unaware of how mean and tough her brother is. Frankie naturally takes offensive and roughs up the guy--and accidentally kills him in the process. During the trial, Manny tries to kill Frankie and both end up being sentenced to Alcatraz. Manny vows that Frankie will die--sooner than later! Much of the movie is set aboard the train and there is a lot of tension as you know SOMETHING wrong is going to occur aboard this death train.Despite being made up of a no-name cast by a no-name studio, most of the film pretty good job. However, one guy plays a real smart-aleck and wow is he annoying--too annoying to be real. But apart from him, the film is loaded with tension and is well worth seeing--and a bit like the later film noir classic, "The Narrow Margin".

I was pleasantly surprised by Prison Train (1938) in which director Gordon Wiles, of all people, makes such an ingenious use of his real locations, stock footage and second-string cast that the result is quite a thrilling film noir which can be favorably compared with The Narrow Margin, despite its muscle budget. Dorothy Comingore comes across well as the pleasing heroine, while Peter Potter does okay as the obliging hero, but the movie's stand-out performance is delivered by Clarence Muse who makes the most of his best role ever as one of the villain's heavies on the train. Photographer Marcel Le Picard who worked on nearly 200 movies (despite a four year break in the middle of his career, 1934-1937) also does some mightily impressive noirish work here, and the film editing of Edward Schroeder likewise rates as a stand-out. Train buffs, of course, will need no encouragement to watch this movie and they too will be thrilled far more than their modest expectations.

Entertaining despite it's low budget production values "Prison Train" is a "Narrow Margin" like suspense movie, made fourteen years earlier, about a man marked for death on his way to the "Big House". Being the number one man in the New York City numbers racket Frankie Terris, Fred Keating, suspects that his rival in crime gang boss Mannie Robbins, Alexander Leftwich, is turning states evidence against him. Making up his mind to get out of the rackets since he's drowning in cash,more money that he can ever spend, from his illegal activities Frankie decides to hand over his share of the business to Robbins and then go with his kid sister Louise, Dorothy Comingore, on a trip to Europe.Robbins son Joe, James Blakely, meets Louise at a get-together at the "Swing Club" where his dad and Frankie are to iron out their latest differences and Joe really gets hooked on Louise. At his suite Frankie spots Joe with his hands all over Louise and tells him to get lost and away from his sister if he knows whats good for him. Later Frankie follows Joe outside and after slugging it out with Joe Frankie smashes his brains in with a lead pipe killing him.It turned out that Frankie killed Joe on government property, the Post Office grounds,and is tried by the Federal Government and sentenced to life and sent to the "Rock", Alcatraz Island, to serve out his time that would be the rest of his natural life. Joe's dad Mannie Robbins want's Frankie to pay with his life and comes up with a plan to have him murdered before he get's there. Having a number of his hoods, including his top Harlem numbers man Sam, Clarense Muse, border the train Robbins plans to kill Frankie himself before the locomotive pulls into the San Francisco station. Also boarding the New York to San Francisco run is Louise who want's to see Frankie off for a last good-by just before he's sent away for good. Even more interesting is US Government Agent Bill Adams, Peter Potter, who's on he train to make sure that nothing happens to Frankie. Adams who's supposed to see to it that Frankie arrives safely to the "Rock" gets so interested in Louise that he completely forgets what he's on he train for in the first place. Which results in the movie's somewhat surprise ending. Robbins could have had Frankie killed almost as soon as he bordered the train with about a dozen of is hoodlums, including Sam disguised as a train steward, on board but waited until the train stooped in Kansas so he alone could board it and do the job himself.Frankie who at first looked as if he was going on vacation without a show of concern at all soon began to turn paranoid with close ups of his face looking like he was a spaced-out zombie as the train came closer and closer to it's final destination. I guess it must have been the cigarettes that he was constantly smoking which must have had something more then tobacco in them. Tightly directed and acted "Prison Train" delivers the goods and only the ending was a bit off and pulled the movie down a few notches. The fight between Frankie and Joe earlier in the movie was so low-keyed and serene, with both men looking like they were sparing with each other and pulling their punches, that for a moment you thought they were doing some kind of dance number until Frankie ended it all by cracking Joe's skull open with a pipe.