"Murder on the Runaway Train." At the Empire Hardened fihn-goers
may remember, far back in screen history, a celebrated serial called The Exploits of Elaine. At the end of each weekly episode the intrepid Elaine—played, I think, by Pearl White—was nearly always left bound to a keg of dynamite or suspended by a rapidly fraying rope over a thousand-foot precipice. At the beginning of the next instalment, of course, the hero arrived on his mustang just in time to set Elaine free, but the villain promptly came along with more dynamite, and the accompanying pianist was soon playing agitated tremolos as hard as ever. Murder on the Runaway Train recalls all these old memories; the main differences are that it is not a serial, the characters have learnt to talk, and the photography no longer flickers.
The heroine is a Los Angeles telephone operator (Mary Carlisle) who finds that she is the long-lost daughter of a railway magnate, and most of the adventures occur while she is travelling to join her father on a train full of secret panels and clutching fingers. Eventually her coach runs away, by itself down a steep mountain grade ; naturally it is packed with explosives, and naturally an express train is coming up the line in the opposite direction.
Unfortunately, a comparison with Elaine reveals an im- provement only in Photographic technique, not in narrative detail. The story starts slowly ; far too many incidents are arbitrary and obscure, and the comedy talents of Charles Ruggles are wasted on the part of a fatuous amateur detective. However, when the coach starts to run away the excitement at last rises to a suitable level ; and as holiday entertainment the film should not perhaps be criticized from a very severe standpoint.
CHARLES DAVY.
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