Movie fans could do a lot worse than to spend an hour on the "Silk Express." Sort of a 1930s version of The Narrow Margin (1951), The Silk Express (1933) arrived during a vogue for train movies. The granddaddy of the type, China Express (1929), was a Russian production, followed by the Hollywood classic Shanghai Express (1932) and the fine British entry Rome Express (1932).

The Silk Express is a Warner Brothers programmer which, as directed by Ray Enright, zips along very pleasantly for its brief, 61-minute running time. Neil Hamilton may be best remembered today as Commissioner Gordon on the 1960s television show Batman, but he had a long and prolific feature film career beforehand, starting deep back in the silent era and extending into the 1940s, after which he shifted mostly to TV. He was a handsome leading man and projected a rugged, energetic sophistication, and this film, one of six he made in 1933 (for five separate studios!), is no exception.

Hamilton plays Donald Kilgore, a New York-based silk importer. The market for silk is suddenly red hot, but a speculator named Wallace Myton (Arthur Hohl) has cornered the market on silk and is asking importers to pay astronomical prices for the stuff. Kilgore refuses to give in, instead ordering a huge shipment of raw silk directly from Japan. He arranges to have it shipped to Seattle, where he will meet it and then accompany it on a special train he has chartered to bring it across the country to New York. Time is of the essence, for Kilgore has contracts with clothing manufacturers to fulfill. Myton, however, has no plans to allow Kilgore to succeed, and he calls to action a network of hoods and thugs to intercept, interrupt, and slow down in any way possible that train. It's a fun set-up for a typically brisk Warner Bros. action mystery of the period. As is so often the case in these movies, there are crazy plot developments and situations that not only provide amusement in and of themselves but are introduced into the film so quickly that we have no choice but to accept them. Here, the crazy situation is that of Prof. Nyberg (Dudley Digges), "the famous archeologist," who, his doctor explains, "is suffering from a rare form of Oriental sleeping sickness and must get to the Rockefeller Institute in New York for treatment without delay." The sickness has already created paralysis in his legs and "in a little more than three days it'll reach his brain," chimes in the professor's daughter (Sheila Terry). Kilgore agrees to take them on board, though of course we wonder whether this is part of some elaborate plan by Myton. Kilgore wonders, too, but tells his assistant, "The girl doesn't look as though she's capable of lying."

From here on the action stays almost entirely aboard the train, as other characters arrive, murders are committed, a mole is detected, and mysteries deepen. A roster of favorite character actors abound, including Allen Jenkins, Douglas Dumbrille, Harold Huber, Robert Barrat and especially Guy Kibbee, who relishes his role as a small-town sheriff thrilled at the chance to solve an on-board murder that happened in his jurisdiction -- and he's willing to spend as much time as it takes, much to the consternation of Kilgore. Prof. Nyberg, meanwhile, keeps "turning to stone."

For all the craziness, this is a satisfying and enjoyable mystery -- not a great classic by any stretch but nonetheless possessing a cinematic energy and momentum that was taken for granted at the time and is all-too-often sorely missing in movies today.

Warner Archive's made-on-demand DVD-R is a bit scratchy but still looks and sounds perfectly fine. The only extra is the original trailer, but it's superbly entertaining in and of itself.

By Jeremy Arnold