''Bombay Mail'' is a 1934 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Edwin L. Marin Edwin L. Marin (February 21, 1899 – May 2, 1951) was an American film director who directed 58 films between 1932 and 1951, working with Randolph Scott, Anna May Wong, John Wayne, Peter Lorre, George Raft, Bela Lugosi, Judy Garland, E ...

and written by Tom Reed. The film stars

Edmund Lowe Edmund Dantes Lowe (March 3, 1890 – April 21, 1971) was an American actor. His formative experience began in vaudeville and silent film. Biography Lowe was born in San Jose, California. His father was a local judge. His childhood home was a ...

Ralph Forbes Ralph Forbes (born Ralph Forbes Taylor; 30 September 1904 – 31 March 1951) was an English film and stage actor active in Britain and the United States. Early life Forbes was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of Ernest John "E.J." and Ethe ...

Shirley Grey Shirley Grey (born Agnes Zetterstrand; April 11, 1902 – August 12, 1981) was an American actress. She appeared in more than 40 films between 1930 and 1935. Biography Born in Naugatuck, Connecticut, Grey was the daughter of E. A Zetterstr ...

Hedda Hopper Hedda Hopper (born Elda Furry; May 2, 1885February 1, 1966) was an American gossip columnist and actress. At the height of her influence in the 1940s, her readership was 35 million. A strong supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committ ...

Onslow Stevens Onslow Stevens (born Onslow Ford Stevenson; March 29, 1902 – January 5, 1977) was an American stage, television and film actor. Early years Born in Los Angeles, California, Stevens was the son of British-born character actor Houseley Ste ...

, and

Jameson Thomas Jameson Thomas (born Thomas Roland Jameson; 24 March 1888 – 10 January 1939) was an English film actor. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1923 and 1939. He was born in St George Hanover Square, London. On the stage from his earl ...

. The film was released on January 6, 1934, by

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

. The film is based on the Lawrence Blochman novel of the same name which was originally published in 1933 in the pulp magazine '' Complete Stories''. According to

Lal Chand Mehra Lal Chand Mehra was an Indian character actor and academic active in Hollywood from the 1920s through the 1960s. Biography Mehra was born into a prominent Hindu family in Amritsar, India. He attended the University of Punjab as an undergradua ...

, an Indian who acted in and advised numerous Hollywood films in the first half of the 20th century, the entire movie was filmed in elaborate sets. "it was necessary to build an entire Indian train —the ‘Imperial Indian Mail'—to construct several stations and to see that each and every character, from brahmins to untouchables, were correctly costumed and correctly dressed", he said in an interview in the ''

Madera Tribune ''The Madera Tribune'' is a newspaper in Madera, California. Edgar Eugene Vincent founded the ''Madera Mercury'' on March 21, 1885. Another paper, the ''Madera Tribune'', was founded in 1892. The two papers merged to become the ''Madera Mercury-T ...

''.

Plot

The governor of Bengal is assassinated on the ''Bombay Mail'' somewhere between Calcutta and Bombay and it is up to Inspector Dyke (Edmund Lowe) to solve that murder as well as a couple of later murders. The cast of characters include the governor's wife (Hedda Hopper), his two secretaries, a gambler, an entertainer who is not quite what she seems (Shirley Grey), a mineralogist on his way to claim a ruby field, a pickpocket, an anti-British agitator, and a cobra.

Cast

as Inspector Dyke *

as William Luke-Patson *

as Beatrice Jones aka Sonia Smeganoff *

as Lady Daniels *

as John Hawley *

as Capt. Gerald Worthing *

Ferdinand Gottschalk Ferdinand Gottschalk (28 February 1858 – 10 November 1944) was an English theatre and film actor. He appeared in 76 films between 1917 and 1938. He was born and died in London, England. He made his first appearance on the stage in Toronto ...

as Governor Sir Anthony Daniels * Tom Moore as Civil Surgeon * John Wray as Giovanni Martini * John Davidson as R. Xavier *

Georges Renavent Georges Renavent (born Georges DeChaux, April 23, 1892 – January 2, 1969) was a French-American actor in film, Broadway plays and operator of American Grand Guignol. He was born in Paris, France. In 1914, he immigrated to the United Stat ...

as Dr. Maurice Lenoir *

Herbert Corthell Herbert Corthell (born Joseph Bertram Corthell, January 20, 1878 – January 23, 1947) was an American stage and film actor. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died in Hollywood, California Hollywood is a neighborhood in the c ...

as Edward J. Breeze *

Brandon Hurst Brandon Hurst (30 November 1866 – 15 July 1947) was an English stage and film actor. Early life Born in London, England, Hurst studied philology in his youth and began performing in theater in the 1880s. Before he began acting professionall ...

as Pundit Garnath Chundra *

Walter Armitage Walter Armitage (June 1, 1906 – February 22, 1953, born in Johannesburg, South Africa) was a South African playwright, stage and film actor. Selected filmography * '' Potiphar's Wife'' (1931) * ''A Honeymoon Adventure ''A Honeymoon Adv ...

as Maharajah of Zungore *

Garry Owen The 7th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army cavalry regiment formed in 1866. Its official nickname is "Garryowen", after the Irish air " Garryowen" that was adopted as its march tune. The regiment participated in some of the largest ba ...

as Cuthbert Neal

Reception

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called it "an agreeably effective little shiver item" that would keep its "audience in a state of confusion" with its plot twists and deaths. ''The Michigan Daily'' compared it unfavorably to '' Shanghai Express'' but without the presence of

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

and commented on the "unnatural settings" and "decidedly unlike a train interior", ending with an "it could be worse". Later reviewers are more favorable. Michael Pitt called it "unjustly overlooked today" and found it to be a "fast-paced" and entertaining. In particular, Pitt points to the performance of Lowe, calling it superb, and "one of his best starring efforts". Bernard Dick called it an early version of the "railway thriller" and that, even though Laemmle had made a B movie, it had class. The film was banned by the British authorities in India and in Singapore. In India, because it showed the murder of a maharaja and in Singapore because it showed the killing of a government official. Two of Roemheld's scores from the film, "Shirley Theme #3" and "Bombay Station," were reused in the late 1930s by Universal Pictures in its ''

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established ''Buck Rogers'' adve ...

'' series.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Edwin L. Marin 1934 films 1930s English-language films American drama films 1934 drama films Universal Pictures films Films directed by Edwin L. Marin American black-and-white films Films scored by Heinz Roemheld 1930s American films