Foster on Film

A Joker pulls the emergency cord to stop the train in order to retrieve his hat that had flown out a window. This causes the train to arrive at the station late, and with no other trains coming until morning, stranding a group of passengers. Besides the Joker, the group include a newly Married Couple, a Cute Girl traveling with an Earnest Man, a teetotaling, Prissy Lady with a parrot, and a Doctor. They are warned by the Station Master that the station is haunted and that a ghost train comes by at night, and if they want to survive, they need to leave. They refuse, and the Station Master abandons them in fear of the ghosts. What follows is a string of spooky events, including a death and then the disappearance of the corpse, strange sounds and lights, the arrival of a crazed woman, and the passage of the ghost train itself.

The Ghost Train was a very popular British play. Written by Arnold Ridley in 1923, it had a successful run and has seen numerous revivals. It was adapted for the screen in 1927 in a British-German coproduction, and like so many other Dark House movies, it was remade once sound was in place just a few years later, in 1931, this time just by the British. Next, in 1933, came two from the European continent, the Romanian Trenul fantomă and Hungarian Kisértetek Vonata. The French Un Train Dans La Nuit was released in 1934, but that one will get no more discussion here as no prints are known to survive. In 1939 the Dutch joined in with De Spooktrein. And finally the Brits took it back in 1941. There have been four more official versions since then, and a number more that “borrowed” from it, but I’ll stick with the years from ’31 to ‘41.

It’s surprising how much alike the five surviving films are. The basic plot is exactly the same, with all the same major events occurring in the same order, and with few changes to even the minor ones. While the character names change (I’ll use descriptive names for each), their personalities shift only a bit. Footage is even shared between three of them, and the 1941 version had the same director as the 1931, so perhaps it isn’t that surprising.

The Ghost Train is an Old Dark House story transplanted to a railway station. The characters are properly quirky, there’s a dead body and strange lights and talk of ghosts, plenty of comic relief, and an eerie atmosphere. The story line is entertaining enough, and certainly has been popular. The characters are not complex or deeply developed, but rather were intended to represent a cross section of British society in the 1920s, thus supplying a bit of commentary while also being easy to identify. Everything is here for a thoroughly entertaining film. However, a few flaws are inherent to the structure that have been magnified in different productions. The story is good, but it’s brief, at least as executed in all five films (I’ve never seen the play and am curious how it fills nearly two hours). There’s approximately an hour’s worth of material. When an adaptation gets much over that, it drags. As the story was written for the stage, there’s a tendency to replicate that a bit too closely. I’m not a fan of opening up a film for no purpose when made into a movie, but most of these renditions could be converted back into a stage play without making any changes. A few more locations or some clever manipulation of the camera to better tell the tale would be nice. But inventive cinematography is not in abundance. Also, the Joker is supposed to be annoying to the other passengers, but he can easily become annoying to the audience. And if the film features him as the lead instead of part of the ensemble, as several do, he can become downright unpleasant.

How do the individual adaptations fare?

1941’s The Ghost Train is the technically most sophisticated. It has some beautiful shots, with a lovely use of shadows. The camera work sells the tone. It’s also back in England with a director familiar with the property. Everything is set for this to be the best version. And wow, does it not deliver. The old problems persist, with it being too long at an hour and a half, but the failure is from a new source: radio comedy. In 1941, for reasons that elude me, Richard “Stinker” Murdoch and Arthur Askey were successful comedians. Both used a fast talking and obnoxious style, but Askey took it to another level, or I should say, took it too an older level. He’d been a music hall comedian, and he stuck with his old act. He always played the same character, with the same kind of jokes. There’s a lot of pratfalls, a lot of strange walks, and a lot of insults. He’s always very loud, always interrupting, and always talking. His routine wasn’t based on what he said, but on him always saying something. I suspect most people who would find is gags humorous have been dead for seventy years.

But it was 1941 and the studio thought there was money to be made on Askey and “Stinker” so The Ghost Train was made into a vehicle for them, though mostly Askey. The Joker role was greatly enlarged, taking over the film, and then split between the two, though Askey got the lion’s share. When the Joker was trying to hit on the Cute Girl, we now get both “Stinker” and Askey hitting on her, followed by Askey making several faces and then falling down. It’s nonstop and I don’t find a single thing Askey does amusing. I hate his character, which means now I hate the Cute Girl for being amused by him, and sympathize with the Earnest Man. Even if you like Askey (which I find inconceivable), he throws off the entire story. Nothing is frightening with him around. Nothing matters. And the other characters, including the Cute Girl, hardly exist. The Couple have been changed into a droopy pair so that they can be noticed at all. Plus, there’s a plot reason for why the Joker is acting as he does. This sticks around for “Stinker” but there’s no explanation for why Askey’s character is the way he is. He’s just an ass. And as he is more extreme, it make’s “Stinker”’s part make less sense.

This ceases to be The Ghost Train. How much you like it will have nothing to do with the story. It all depends on how much tolerance you have to Askey.