The Ghost Train (1941) - film review

When a party of rail passengers bound for Cornwall miss their connection they find themselves stranded at a railway station, four miles from the nearest village.  The next train is not due until the following morning and there is no other means of transportation. The station master is insistent that the passengers leave and try to find overnight accommodation in the village, but they refuse to move, since it is raining heavily.  Before he goes home, the station master leaves with a dire warning.  The station is haunted, and has been for the last 43 years, since that awful day when a train fell from an open bridge and plunged into the river, killing all on board.  Every night, a ghost train passes through the station, bringing death to anyone who dares to look at it.  Naturally, the travellers react to this fanciful story with derision and disbelief.  But they soon discover there may in fact be some truth in it.  The ghost train is already on it way...

Arnold Ridley’s play The Ghost Train has surfaced in many guises since its original stage production in the mid-1920s.   The first film version was made in 1927 at UFA studies in Germany (with a British cast and crew).  The 1931 British film version (which starred popular comic actor Jack Hulbert) no longer exists in its entirety and has been overshadowed by this more dramatic 1941 version, which provided a suitable comedy vehicle for the popular music hall comic Arthur Askey.  Will Hay’s comedy Oh, Mr. Porter! (1937) is also loosely based on Ridley’s play.  In addition, there have been radio adaptations and in 1937 the BBC transmitted a television version (one of the corporation’s first broadcast TV dramas).  And yes, in case you are wondering, this is the same Arnold Ridley who would later play the loveable Private Godfrey in the BBC TV series Dad’s Army.

This 1941 film version is perhaps the best known adaptation of Ridley’s play.  An atmospheric piece which tapped into contemporary fears of Nazi invasion, the film effectively combines comedy and thriller suspense, benefiting from an enjoyably eccentric ensemble cast and well-honed screenplay.  Arthur Askey’s presence is both a curse and a blessing - he lightens the mood and heightens the intrigue by appearing slightly sinister, but his relentless attempts at humour soon become tiresome (to put it mildly). 

The film’s main failing is that Askey looks as if he is doing a one-man show.  The story and the other characters end up being shunted down a siding, so that Askey can take centre-stage and regale us with his face pulling, pratfalls and seriously toe-curling jokes.  It does not help that his character is an unsympathetic nuisance who spends most of his time winding up all of the other protagonists.  The brooding atmosphere and some pleasing Hitchcockian touches in the final act at least go some way to compensate for this surfeit of Askey-themed humour, but you really have to be a die-hard Arthur Askey fan to love this film.

© Derek Adamson 2010

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