Mystery Junction (1951)

The greatest movie ever made..!

It is a performances centric movie

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Larry Gordon wakes up on board a train journey, to an adoring fan of his crime writing Miss Owens. The pair hear a loud scream and set off to investigate, whilst searching the train the pair stumble upon two detectives who are holding dangerous prisoner Steve Harding, who is awaiting trial for murder. Later a body is discovered, and with the horrendous weather stopping the train, Larry concludes that the killer must be a passenger on the train.I waited with anticipation to see this film, being a huge whodunit fan, this seemed in theory to fit the bill. Very much a B movie, although from the point of view of filming, production values etc. it looks very slick, very nicely made in fact. The acting is pretty good, Sydney Tafler and Barbara Murray are the standouts, both excellent in truth. I think the film attempted to cross genres, the typical British whodunit, close setting, quirky suspects, and it also tried to import some of the gangster genre that had been popular, towards the end there's a big shoot out scene, which seems oddly placed. The plot loses it a little, becoming a little messy.It didn't satisfy me from the point of view of a whodunit, as to be honest I couldn't have cared, but in many other ways it's a solid movie, not a classic, but watchable. 6/10

Director: MICHAEL McCARTHY. Script: Michael McCarthy. Photography: Bob Lapresle. Film editor: Geoffrey Muller. Art director: George Haslam. Music: Michael Sarsfield. Camera operator: Leo Rogers. Make- up: Jack Craig. Hair styles: Jane Seymour. Set continuity: Biddy Chrystal. Production manager: George Mills. Assistant director: Ted Holliday. Sound re-recording: Dick Smith, Ronald Abbott. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: William H. Williams.A Merton Park Studios Production, released in the U.K. by Anglo Amalgamated: 26 July 1952 (sic). London trade show: September 1951. Not copyrighted or theatrically released in the U.S.A. Probably released in Australia by British Empire Films, but no record of a release date. 6,050 feet. 67 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Miss Owens is immensely excited when she recognizes her traveling companion as the author of a detective story she is reading. She demands to know how he sets about writing a thriller and Larry outlines for her a plot involving people on the train.Petersen and Constable Blake are escorting Steve Harding to his trial for murder; Harding causes trouble and when the train is held up by snow, and the passengers are together in the waiting room, he seizes a gun and holds them up, but is unable to escape through the snow. During the night Petersen and the stationmaster are murdered.COMMENT: It's hard to decide which is the worst feature of this film — the doggedly clichéd and totally uninteresting variation on the it-was-all-a-dream plot, acted out by stodgy characters in a couple of cramped sets; the patently second-rate cast (even Barbara Murray makes little impression); or the dull, lifelessly uninvolving direction; or the tiresome, endlessly see-sawing dialogue. True, there's a tiny bit of action and the movie would probably cut down to a passably entertaining two-reeler (despite its poor performances). But, padded out to feature length, it's an unqualified bore.

The scenario in which a group of people find themselves in a closed environment where a murder is then committed by an unseen hand was not new when this short black and white film was made. However, Mystery Junction plays out the tale neatly and efficiently, keeping us guessing all the way, although following exactly who has done what to whom becomes increasingly difficult.The acting is excellent, the cinematography exemplary - there are some quite classical compositions, one in particular towards the end. This is a very British film, the drama comes from tension, not from heroics. Indeed, that heroism is futile is made plain throughout, and even where violence brings results, they will ever play you false.The quality of this film is masked by its low budget, and, on the print I just saw on television, murky resolution. Two of the cast, Sydney Tafler and Ewen Solon, went on to prominent TV careers, and most of the others found plenty of work in television. However, for Pearl Cameron, whose performance was a minor highlight of the film, this was her second, and last credit.While not an outstanding film, Mystery Junction is worth watching if you value tight, understated drama.

It's actually a British film. We think at the beginning of an Agatha Christie story, or something like Alfred Hitchcock's LADY VANISHES, a suspense aboard a train. A sort of closed theatre topic. And it is. But not in the way we may expect. It turns to have some kind of American point of view, in the middle of the film. It is more interesting than the films made in the early talkies, boring at the most. Of course, this feature is much talkative, we could not wait for action or gunfights.I don't know the director, maybe he made some stuff for TV later. Well, let's be generous, it's not a bad programmer. I won't describe the exact story and spoil you the film, even if I could with a warning.