Memorable, crazy movie

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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

Pulp fiction at its best. True, the continuity is somewhat jerky, shots don't always match smoothly, the sound recording is a bit primitive, the acting amateurish, the plot ridiculous, and dialogue straight out of the Boy's Own Paper. But what do all these things matter when the movie is directed with such vigor and pace? The story tears along with action, action all the way. Car chases, train wrecks, plane crashes, fist fights, shoot-outs, stunts galore — including one of the most thrilling I've ever seen when the villain jumps from the roof of a speeding train to a rope ladder dangling from an overhead plane. Blonde Jean Harlowish Shirley Grey (we assume that's how she spells her name, though the credits have it Gray) makes an attractive heroine and figures in quite a lot of the action, whilst Wayne (oddly he is inclined to over-act here, when usually he veers to the other extreme) makes a personable hero. Good to see Tully Marshall heading the support cast, and Edmund Breese (a natural Walter Brennan type who needs little make-up to make him look scruffy) in a major role. Little Ernie Adams has the unlikely part of the Wrecker's chief thug (though he manages it well enough), while Charles King and Glenn Strange back him up. For train buffs of course The Hurricane Express is an absolute must. For serial lovers, it's great fun. One wonders how a Poverty Row outfit like Mascot was able to persuade a railroad to lend them such a vast amount of rolling stock and stage such spectacular crashes and near-misses. Doubtless J.P. McGowan's connections proved useful here!Definitely one of the most exciting and fascinating of the early sound era, independent cliff-hangers.

"The Hurricane Express" is a very low budget movie serial from tiny Mascot Studios. And, because of this, there isn't a whole lot to distinguish it other than one big thing--it stars a very young John Wayne. If it weren't for this, I doubt if many people would ever want to see the film. It just isn't very good.The film begins by introducing Larry (John Wayne) and his father. Larry is a pilot and his dad has been an engineer for the railroad for many years. However, soon the father is killed--the result of someone sabotaging the rails. Who would do this and why would they do it? Larry was determined to figure this out for himself--and thus goes the rest of this 12-part serial. At the end of each part, there is, of course, some cliffhanger that makes it APPEAR that he is killed--but naturally, Larry has found some ridiculous way to somehow survive. It turns out that the sabotage is NOT the work of some nut, but a guy called 'The Wrecker'--but who the wrecker is you need to wait until part 12 to learn. In the meantime, he and his gang try again and again to sabotage the rails.When you watch the film you'll probably notice a few things. First, the film is very quiet. The usual incidental music is gone--partly because early sound films sometimes missed this and partly because the production was so cheap that they couldn't afford it. Also, the condition of the print is not particularly great--but much of this is because of the degradation of the film and has nothing to do with the original quality of the serial. As for the writing, it's pretty poor--with lots of action but not a whole lot in depth or believability. It's quite a step below the quality of a serial from a decade later. Not terrible...just not all that good.

The heroine turns out to have jumped out of the car before it went over the cliff? OK, that's pretty standard. But why can we still see her (actually, a dummy representing her) in the car as it careens down the hillside? Even more fun are those chapters where they simply substitute new footage showing something completely different than we saw in the previous chapter. My favorite is the one at the end of Chapter 8/beginning of Chapter 9. They simply filmed two completely different events, showed one at the end of 8 and the other at the beginning of 9.Also, I want one of those magic masks which not only perfectly simulate someone else's face, but also his voice, height, and build. I'll take the Young John Wayne model.It's always fun to watch stuff like this (even though it may be the worst thing the Duke ever did) and try to imagine what contemporary audiences would have been thinking. Did any of them realize that this big stiff young guy would one day become not just the biggest star in Hollywood, but a cultural icon? I doubt it.

Despite a great title, "The Hurricane Express" (referring to a crack passenger train which we hardly even see at all) is very slow and talky. Most of the film time is spent in static conversation about who might be wrecking the railroad company's trains. This serial came from the bargain-basement Mascot studio, and seems as if it were done by a high-school film class. There is John Wayne, of course, and some worthwhile vintage train, airplane and outdoor footage, but if that's all you want, keep poised onto the fast-forward button. The editing (or lack thereof) is the worst thing about "The Hurricane Express"; scenes are allowed to run on interminably, and it's as though Mascot didn't want to throw any precious film away. Shy away from the full-length film and look instead for any condensed version .... which still might be too long. So, who wrecked "The Hurricane Express"? Mascot Pictures did. Recommended only for curiosity-seekers.