Film review: Murder, She Said (1961)

We felt like a comfort food film tonight, and this seemed very apposite.  It's the first of the Margaret Rutherford Marple films, and I find that I had her pegged wrong.  For some reason I have her in mind as a wholly unserious Marple, rather jolly and bumbling (in stark contrast to the shrewd Joan Hickson, still the ne plus ultra of Marples, which is why it's a jolt to see the actual Joan Hickson in a small role in this one, 

completely unlike her Marple), but, while she definitely leans to the comedic, she is a genuinely great actress and well capable of conveying hidden depths and serious intent.  

The Marple book of which this is an adaptation is 4:50 from Paddington, which has the killer opening premise of Miss Marple witnessing a murder being committed in a train as it passes alongside her own.  Specifically, the blinds in an apartment pop up momentarily to reveal black-gloved hands throttling a woman to death.  

Of course, when she reports this, first to the guard and then to the police, they are, to say the least, skeptical (the guard notes that she has been dozing and before that she was reading a particularly lurid murder mystery, something for which we later discover she has a taste, as she has a running request at the library (with what passes for a love interest!) to reserve all the new ones that come in - to the outrage of the other old ladies whom he passes over to show favoritism to Marple).  

However, the police take her seriously enough to investigate, even searching alongside the train tracks to find a body, to no avail.  So, Miss Marple, convinced that the body will have been removed before the police search, decides, with the (timorous) help of her librarian beau (Mr. Stringer, played by Rutherford's actual husband, whose actual first name was Stringer) to check out the place where she works out body would have to have been dumped herself (clad in "disguises" of rail-worker outfits (the sight of Rutherford in trousers is quite a jolt)). 

The train track is on top of a steep slope, at the bottom of which Miss Marple finds definite evidence of a body, up against a wall, the other side of which there is currently a very unfriendly gardener and even more unfriendly-looking dog, but also the grounds of a stately home.  But how to investigate said stately home?  Miss Marple gets the idea when Mr. Stringer suggests that the servants might be responsible: she should go undercover as a servant!  There follows an amusing little interlude with a very young Richard Briers, and the main part of the film begins.  

Turns out the family that inhabits the house is, guess what? Eccentric!  They are the Ackenthorpes, heirs to a biscuit fortune, and currently only consisting of the irascible head of the household (played by an actor who must have appeared #1 in the casting book under "irascible," James Robertson Justice (most recently seen by us as the eccentric head of a candy-making dynasty in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)), his sweet but somewhat meek daughter Emma (ably played by an actress with whom I was unfamiliar 

(Muriel Pavlow, whose main claim to fame in my eyes is having Glynis Johns as her maid of honor), and the character who comes closest to stealing the film from Rutherford, the impish young nephew of Emma, son of her dead sister, whose living father (played by Leslie Howard's son Ronald) seems to be showing an interest in her (get in line!), Alexander, 

very well played by Ronnie Raymond (who apparently retired from acting at age 16).  He immediately pegs that there's something fishy about Miss Marple, insists on calling her Jane, and manages, despite being a cheeky little prankster, likeable because of his sheer forthrightness (and recognition that Miss Marple is a cool person to hang around with).  In her turn, while not letting him in on her secret, Miss Marple lets him accompany her on her spying-under-the-cover-of-playing golf, and it is he that discovers a crucial clue: an ornate makeup compact that plays Frere Jacques, found in the old disused stables that Alexander says used to be a great spot to spy on courting village couples until his grouchy grandpa had them chased away.  These stables also contain a mysterious locked room, one that Miss Marple was just about to get into when the scary gardener Hillman, the only person even crankier than Ackenthorpe, who relies on him to manhandle him around when necessary (Ackenthorpe is a perpetual invalid, whose relatives are openly circling, hoping to inherit, which of course is the basis for the plot). Anyway, Miss Marple returns later and finds, concealed in a sarcophagus, the body of the train victim, although she is smart enough to get Stringer to call it in to the police so that later she can truthfully deny that it was her who called the police.  So... whodunnit?  Miss Marple's work has only begun, as she has to wear the silliest of maid's outfits 

as she investigates the suspects, who are largely the aforementioned mooching Ackenthorpe spawn - obnoxious shit-stirring wastrel Cedric, priggish businessman Harold and dreamy, virginal Albert, who is the one to remember that there was a scandal involving a French maid and their brother Edmund who was killed in the war, when it is revealed that the victim was in all likelihood French.  Then it turns out that Emma got a letter from that same maid (Martine) claiming that she had just married Edmund days before his death and was returning to see what she was entitled to just days before the murder.  Talking of Emma, she and Acklethorpe's doctor are in love, and it's the doctor who first points out to the police that the clothes of the corpse look French.  

Anyway, two of the brothers are bumped off in short order, one by poisoning (Miss Marple is outraged that it was her curried duck (ugh) that got arsenicked, although in dosages small enough that everyone else survived, so that brother had to have had a second dose from somewhere, and another by shotgun "suicide" and the inspector (who was come to respect Miss Marple and is obviously her Lestrade) 

becomes worried for her safety, as does Stringer.  And what with the power cuts to which the old house is prone, things are getting hairy.  But Miss Marple thinks she's figured it out - the only thing now is to draw the murderer out, which requires somebody being bait...  Alls well that end's well (although one innocent character's dreams will have taken a dent), and grumpy Ackenthorpe so warms to Miss Marple that he is surprised to find himself proposing (and amazed to find himself rejected).

A fun little number - more like a 40s film, if it weren't for the distinctly (occasionally jarring) 60s soundtrack.  I would certainly have watched a series with Alexander as regular sidekick.  But it was not to be, and eventually undertaking called, showing that actor and character shared the same blase attitude to a corpse.

Back to Hurley

Yesterday was a good day.  Bright and sunny and we went and checked out Stepping Stone Falls.  

But last night Frederick had 3 seizures (at 2-3 hour intervals) so at 5 AM it was back to Hurley again.  More new meds prescribed, and we're home again about 12 hours later.  Once again, everybody there (including the paramedics that came and got him) was wonderful, but this is getting old.

Film review: On Approval (1944)

This wartime film feels the need to preface its entirely frivolous Victorian comedy of manners with a little introduction explaining that, given the state of the world today, both because of the war and because modern mores leave nothing to the imagination

a contrast is a pleasant break.  As indeed it is.  "Very Wildean" I thought to myself, shortly followed by "why is the voice of the second male lead (Richard) so familiar?"  And the answer was that it was Roland Culver, whom I must have listened to at least 100 times playing Algernon Moncrieff in this.  Anyway, the basic plot is that Richard agrees with the object of his affection, a rich 41-year-old called Maria (pronounced to rhyme with pariah, and played by a legendary Canadian stage comedienne, who made far fewer films than her fans would have liked, Beatrice Lillie, who was actually 50 at the time but doesn't look it) to go through a sort of audition process whereby they go off on holiday for a month as if they were married, and if she still likes him at the end, then she will consent to the union.  Tagging along (against Maria's wishes, but putatively to help the meek and mild Richard along) is George, played by the writer and director, Clive Brook (quite the Noel Coward knock-off), who is the Duke of Bristol, so penurious that the film begins (well, after the introduction) with him attending a party thrown at his own house, that he has had to rent out to a rich American woman (played by the English actress Googie Withers

 - is nobody in this film played by the right nationality?) Helen.  George loves Helen and Helen loves George, but George is leery of marriage even though this one would definitely get him out of his financial difficulties.  Anyway, Maria's plan is to decamp to a house she owns on a small island off the Scottish coast (that's two "one house on an island" films in a row), but that every night Richard is to row to the mainland.  Richard isn't too happy about this, but is too milquetoast to do anything about it, but while getting drunk in the servants (who are much happier in Helen's employ because she actually pays them) quarters, 

George and Richard hatch a plot to book up the only inn in the village under the fake name of the whisky they happen to be getting drunk on.  However, Helen discovers the note George leaves to himself and decides that she's going to get in on the act.  When Maria and Richard and George show up to the inn to discover that it is indeed full up (and that the two men will have to stay on the island) Helen suddenly appears and says she knows that family and they've agreed to let everyone use their rooms, making Richard and George momentarily sad, until the grumpy old Scottish innkeeper announces that the inn was booked up anyway, so it's off to the island for all four.  They find very quickly that the main Scottish housekeeper is outraged by Maria's progressive "On Approval" plan and she marches out in protest, taking the rest of the servants with her.  

However, everyone pitches in, and the four manage to survive the month.  

Well, almost everyone.  George continues to be a wastrel, quite content to have Helen wait on him hand and foot, and to complain about the service when she does.  In fact, he is such an ass that the gentle, loving Helen sours on him completely (especially when she turns away from him and asks him to name the color of her eyes and he gets it wrong (he says blue, Richard, when given the same test, instantly gets it right with Green)).  Meanwhile, Richard is distraught because he thinks Maria hates him, because she's been so horrible to him.  He is momentarily greatly relieved when she says that she likes him even more than she thought, but then he works out that she wasn't just being horrible to him as a test, that's just how she is, and he, likewise, recoils.  He and Helen then hatch a plan to strand George and Maria on the island by themselves as punishment and sneak off just as George and Maria are trying to play nice to convince their intendeds that they have reformed.  What will happen? Well, possibly not what you think (certainly Jami was wrong about what was coming).

Overall, not laugh out loud, and not quite Wilde or Shaw quality of quips, but some nice zingers and amusing enough shenanigans that I'm surprised it's not more well-known (to me, anyway).

Blustery Pierce Park

Film review: Night Train to Munich (1940)

I could have sworn we'd seen this before from the title, but then watching it nothing was ringing a bell...until the climax, where there was definite déjà vu.  But at any rate, no harm in seeing it twice, because it's a corker.  It's essentially a Lady Vanishes companion piece, because it's written by the same writers, features Margaret Lockwood as the heroine (albeit a different one, supposedly Czech, although she wisely never attempts an accent), and again features Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the Cricket-loving archetypical Englishmen Charters and Caldicott.  

However, taking over from Alfred Hitchcock is Carol Reed, and taking over from Michael Redgrave as the dashing lead is a very young-looking Rex Harrison (whose face looks strangely bottom-heavy - he definitely improved with age), whom I shall now think of as the Evil David Niven (given his well-documented off-screen shittiness, as well as his on-screen arrogant persona).  It also features Paul "Casablanca" Henreid as [SPOILER] an apparent good guy who makes a sharp heel turn about 20 minutes in.

Anyway, our film begins in Prague just as the Nazis are "being forced to invade for self-defense".  There's actually some impressive special effects of the Luftwaffe flying overhead and dropping leaflets.  

The group of middle-aged-to-old men whom we see witness this all make tracks for the airport, one of them ("Bomasch") after calling his daughter (who turns out to be Margaret Lockwood's Anna) to tell her to meet him.  

Well, she might've made it if she hadn't gone upstairs to pack and get all dressed up in her best fur coat.  As it is, she opens the door to find Nazis on her doorstep, come to arrest her.  Off she goes to a concentration camp, where she encounters Karl, a teacher who stands up to the Nazis and gets beaten badly for his mouthiness.  

However, one day when they're talking covertly, a Nazi officer comes to punish them and Karl recognizes him as a former pupil whom he advised to pretend to be a Nazi to survive, and Karl begins to hatch an escape plan.  And escape they do, on to a ship, and off to England, where they land at a seaside resort by pretending to be bringing in one of the rowboats.  Then the task is to find Anna's father.  "Fortunately," Karl has a friend who can help the two illegal aliens out - an optician... who turns out to be a Nazi spy!!  And guess what?  So is Karl! The whole "help Anna escape" scheme is just because her father is an engineer who has produced some amazing armor plating that both the British and the Nazis want to get their mitts on.  Anyway, Anna puts an advert in the paper for her father to contact her and gets a mysterious phone call telling her where to pick up a single train ticket that will take her to (another) seaside resort, where she is to ask for "Gus Bennett".  Moreover, she is not to tell anyone where she's going.  Of course, she runs straight to Karl to tell him, but (amazingly) refrains from giving any details.  However, she is, of course, followed (by the evil optician) when she goes and finds that "Gus Bennett" is Rex Harrison as a boardwalk performer whose schtick is singing his own songs and selling the sheet music.  Anna stays under "Gus's" (really Dickie Randall) protection, 

although chafing rather, and getting quite insulting about his music) while her father, with whom she is reunited, stays across the bay at a military installation.  However, "English naval officers" come and knock out Dickie, and escort the unsuspecting Bomasches under cover of night to a U-Boat off the coast where Anna is horrified to see Karl in a Nazi uniform.

Dickie is somewhat crestfallen at his failure but determined to make up for it.  If the Nazis can steal the Bomasches, well then he can steal them back!  And so begins the real movie, wherein Dickie disguises himself as Major Ulrich Herzog of the Corps of Engineers and infiltrates the building where the Bomsches are being held and persuades several very gullible officials (the funniest of whom, Raymond Huntley, looked very familiar, and turns out not just to have been a fixture on 70s British TV, but also the evil headmaster in the third Hornsleigh film we just watched) that he was Anna's lover a few years ago and can persuade her to persuade her father to cooperate.  

After (half) a night in the hotel where they must pretend to be being amorous (and Dickie almost gives himself away by humming one of his tunes that the room service man recognizes as British) their plans to escape are derailed by a demand from the Fuhrer that the Bomasches be brought immediately by train to Munich (hence the title).  This is not meant to include "Major Ulrich" but he again persuades all and sundry that it's best if he tag along.  It's on the platform that his ruse begins to unravel thanks to an encounter with Caldicott who swears he's the spitting image of his old Cambridge pal Dickie.  This sets off Karl's suspicions (helped by the fact that he's been insanely jealous of Ulrich, having obviously been a bit smitten by Anna) and he calls around to see if there really is an Ulrich Herzog.  As luck would have it, Charters is on an extension and realizes that, yes it is really Dickie, and that he's be rumbled.  Thereafter Charters and Caldicott have to find it in themselves to help out.  There follows a tense scene on the train (did Dickie prefer doughnuts or teacakes? turns out to be a question of vital import) 

leading up to the climax of cable cars in the mountains at the Swiss border that tickled our déjà vu.  Slightly straining credulity is the fact that in the shootout that accompanies this scene, Dickie's small revolver fires between 20 and 30 bullets before it finally runs out.  

But at any rate, a first rate little number, full of jabs at the Nazis that are much needed in today's climate.  A double bill of this with The Lady Vanishes would be very satisfying.  Shame Rex Harrison was such a cad, because he makes a very satisfyingly suave hero, and Margaret Lockwood is a national treasure, even if the nation isn't really Czechoslovakia.

Film review: And Then There Were None (1945)

I'll leave it up to you to google the original title of the film and the name it was broadcast under on British TV right up into the 70s.  Even the film in the forties resorted to its somewhat less offensive version, which is thoroughly incorporated into the film in the form of a macabre song that gets referenced throughout.

This film has a rather unexpected director: Rene Clair of A Nous La Liberte and I Married A Witch (and also, I now see, The Ghost Goes West), better known for light comedies, but while this film has definite light touches (and a rather European blase-ness about death), 

it doesn't skimp on the suspense or even horrific elements.  The plot itself has become something of a cliche: 10 people (eight guests and two servants) staying at a large house on a tiny island, each of them called there supposedly by a friend of theirs with news of a job offer from a mutual friend "U.N. Owen" (a transparent alias), who is surprisingly absent when they all arrive, 

until his disembodied voice is heard on a gramaphone record played by the butler at 9 PM, that lists the unpunished deaths for which each one of them (including the butler and his wife) is responsible.  Of course now everyone wants to leave, but there are no communications with the mainland and the boat will not return until after the weekend.  And then, of course, the deaths begin, starting with the obnoxious playboy Russian "professional guest" who after revealing that, yes indeed, he did run over a couple of people while drunk, his only regret that it cost him his license, keels over after drinking a poisoned drink.  Very quickly it emerges both that the deaths mirror the deaths of the "ten little Indians" of the song he was loudly singing before expiring, but that every time a death happens, one of the ten little figurines in the centerpiece on the dining table vanishes.  (Why they don't just remove all of them at once or put a better guard on them to see who keeps doing this is one of the many annoyances of Christie's plot.)

As I say, it's all archly done but with definite frissons, and several characters are sympathetic so that you're not rooting for them all to die, including Walter Huston's drunken doctor, Barry Fitzgerald's perky little Irish judge, Roland Young's cockney Detective Blore, and sultry June "Thief of Baghdad" Duprez just because she's sultry.  

You certainly root against the callous god botherer Emily Brent who has no regrets about her own nephew hanging himself, and it is no real spoiler to reveal that she will get hers.  Enough twists and turns happen that it doesn't get repetitive, and we are kept guessing as to whether one of the 10 is the real "U.N. Owen" or if he's hiding out somewhere on the premises.  And are all of the guests as bad as they're painted, and should we really be rooting for them all to die?  Definitely one of the better Agatha Christie adaptations I've seen.

Film review: The Chase (1946)

An odd little number: interesting premise, some good actors (including PETER LORRE), well-filmed, but overall a bit of a disappointment. (We watched it on YouTube, where the print and subtitles are far superior to our recent viewings, but with the downside of inserted ads.) It begins with poverty-stricken drifter Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings, familiar from Saboteur, one of Hitchcock's earlier and weaker US efforts, notable for a scene on the Statue of Liberty that pairs nicely with the Mount Rushmore scene in North By Northwest) with his nose pressed up against the window of a coffee shop as he watches the fry cook flip pancakes and bacon slices.  He spots a wallet stuffed with cash on the sidewalk, eats a hearty breakfast, 

then sets out to return it.  It belongs to Eddie Roman, a very sinister (and very rich) young man (played with convincing psychopathy by Steve Cochran), with an equally sinister henchman Gino (Lorre) and a beautiful French wife, Lorna.  We see immediate signs that Eddie is a bad egg in the way he treats the women giving him a haircut and a manicure as Chuck arrives.  

However, Chuck doesn't get to see this and accepts Eddie's offer of employment as a chauffeur, as, despite being a decorated ex-sailor, he is currently unemployed.  We first see him have cause to regret this when they're out on a drive when suddenly he finds he can't control the speed of the car.  Turns out Eddie's car is equipped with a gizmo that transfers all controls except the steering to the back seat, and he ups the speed to 110 MPH as they hurtle towards a railway crossing.  

Realizing at the last minute that they won't make it, Eddie slams on the brakes.  He's pretty impressed with Chuck's comparative sang froid, though, and this increases his trust.

Later evidence of Eddie's evil is seen in his dealings with a corpulent business rival, who gets dispatched in the wine cellar by a particularly large and vicious dog.  All in all, it's unsurprising that Lorna is a bit unhappy, and seeks relief in daily drives to a seaside pier where she gazes out into the Atlantic 

(one assumes this takes place in Florida - it probably says, but I wasn't paying that close attention), until one day she outright propositions Chuck with the idea of paying him $1000 to escape to Havana (this being pre-revolution).  He accepts without missing a beat - he's got nothing going on, she's gorgeous, and Eddie's evil.  He takes care of buying two tickets on a boat for tonight, but is seen by a character wearing a distinctive hat, which obscures his face from our sight.

Also a bad sign: Eddie starts asking questions about where he and Lorna go on their daily drives and even demands to be shown the pier.  Has the man in the hat been talking to him?  Apparently not, because the two manage to escape before Gino discovers Chuck missing and relays the information to Eddie, lounging listening to loud opera on a gramophone.  "What's our next move?" asks Gino. "Play the other side," drawls Eddie languidly.

Cut to the escaping lovers on the boat where at first they are unsure of themselves and Lorna insults Chuck by giving him the $1000, but then as definitely a besotted couple in the bustling streets of Havana.  However, the first signs of something amiss crop up when their buggy driver strangely refuses to return them to their ship (their ultimate destination is South America) and even departs without taking his fare.  They repair to a nightclub, where they are jostled by nasty-looking characters and then [stop reading now if you plan to watch it] Lorna is stabbed!  

Dead!  And Chuck is arrested for it!  And when he tries to prove his innocence (she was stabbed with a jade-handled knife like one he'd just bought, but he swears his had a monkey covering its eyes, whereas the murder weapon had a monkey covering its ears) it looks like he's being framed.  He escapes from the cops, however, only to run into Gino... who shoots him!  

And then, in a truly Earth-shaking twist [no really, stop reading now] he wakes up back in his little room on the day of their escape, with the two tickets to Havana still in his pocket, and Lorna very much alive.  And then he calls up somebody on the phone and says "it's happened again!"  The person is his old Navy doctor, and they meet in a nightclub to discuss his problem, which is definitely amnesia-related, because he knows there's something he should be doing at a certain time, but can't remember what.  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same nightclub, Gino and Eddie are meeting with the man in the hat (Eddie having already found Lorna, distraught at Chuck's disappearance, writing a "goodbye" note, and beaten her and locked her in her room) who is another corpulent associate who relays the purchase of the two tickets (he'd recognized Eddie's car that Chuck was driving).  Chuck remembers, rescues Lorna, heads for the Harbor.  Eddie and Gino follow in Eddie's special car, Gino steering, Eddie handling the pedals from the back seat. And Eddie again cannot resist a race for the railroad crossing...

As I describe it, I realize it had a lot of memorable scenes and really should be better than it was.  Something about it didn't hang together.  But apparently it did very well at Cannes.

Film review: The Phantom Light (1935)

Continuing our run of lesser-known 30s and 40s British films, this one is from YouTube.  (We thought that would mean we could follow along with the subtitles, but there were some truly laughable mistakes as the AI (?) struggled with a muffled soundtrack and Welsh/Cockney accents.)  It's an early Michael "Black Narcissus/The Red Shoes" Powell number, and stars Gordon "Inspector Hornleigh" Harker as Sam Higgins, who is shown at the beginning of the film arriving in Wales by train.  The first person he encounters at the tiny station is an old woman dressed in an outfit 

that I recognized from the dolls for sale at the gift shop of the Welsh Adventure Holiday Sophy and I went to when I was about 8, who speaks only Welsh.  Higgins, who is a cockney come down to Wales to be the new lighthouse keeper, is so exhasperated that when he finds a fellow cockney working elsewhere in the station he quips "Ah! A fellow white man!"  Also waiting at the station is Alice Bright, enthusiastically if not very impressively played by the British Joan Blondell, "Binnie" Hale.  

Exactly what she's there for is never conclusively revealed, as she tells a series of lies about it.  But both of them eventually get a car into the village, where Higgins (who is definitely the comic relief) is surprised to find just about everyone has the last name Owen ("is nobody paying?") and that there are all kinds of strange stories about the lighthouse and previous keepers.  They keep ending up dead, except for the current remaining keeper, who is (violently) insane.  And there are stories of the light failing just when needed, only for a "phantom" light to appear that has lured ships onto the rocks.  While waiting to be transported to the (offshore) lighthouse, Higgins is bribed by somebody he takes to be a journalist to take him along, but resists (except for accepting the drinks he keeps buying).  When he gets to the lighthouse

(which is either a great set or a genuine lighthouse) he finds a dour older assistant (Claff Owen) 

and his nephew, who is the crazy one, 

who alternates between passing out and attacking people.  Higgins wants him tied up, and the doctor who comes along gives him sedatives, but Claff insists he's a good lad.  There's also Tom, a nice young man who minds the light.  Higgins is not happy, but settles in, and we see him boasting about his sausage-cooking skills that evening, as Claff tells him spooky stories about the recent goings-on.  

The nephew kicks up a fuss so Higgins gets his way about tying him up, when the "journalist" arrives in a boat that he claims has run out of petrol, and we all discover that he has unbeknownst brought along Alice as a stowaway.  After some salacious scenes of Annie changing out of her wet clothes 

(and humorous scenes of her turning Higgns's best Sunday trousers into shorts) We are led to believe that both of the are up to something suspicious when the "journalist" starts setting up some kind of electrical equipment in the room that contains the trussed-up nephew.  But then things start to go seriously awry.

A good balance between thrills and laughs, this one could easily form the plot of a Scooby Doo episode, as several characters turn out to be not what they appeared to be.  All except Sam Higgins, that is, who is the same sardonic cockney quipster throughout.  Just the kind of film that used to be on on BBC 2 of a weekend afternoon, ideal viewing when it's wet and miserable outside: zips by without pausing for breath with a very satisfying denouement.

Film review: Bank Holiday (1938)

I must admit I felt very impatient with just about every character in this film at one point or another.  We found it because it was Margaret "The Lady Vanishes" Lockwood's first big film (immediately before that one, actually) and, to be sure, she's very good in it, and, get this, it was directed by Carol "The Third Man" Reed... but...  That said, it's a fascinating slice of pre-WWII class-ridden British life, and everyone in it is good, it's just very frustrating to see everyone essentially so trapped.  The set up is that Lockwood is a nurse, Catherine, whose patient is an expectant mother having unspecified difficulties.  She feels for the father, who is a rather simpering toff in my estimation, who completely collapses when (inevitably) the wife dies in childbirth.  (And he rejects the baby, who survives, and won't even look at it!  And this doesn't turn her against him.)  In a case of bad timing, she is late for the train to a hot bank holiday weekend with her "friend" Geoff, who has been saving for months to afford the best hotel in "Bexborough" (Brighton?) and insufficiently enthusiastic when she gets there.  Geoff gets all pouty (every man in this film is obnoxious) even after she explains that her patient died, and is instantly suspicious (rightly, it turns out) that she's fallen for the husband (whom we see wandering about London, having every landmark remind him of his dead wife, in scenes intercut throughout the film) whose lighter she still has.  Also on the (ridiculously crowded) train are: a working class family, consisting of a fat husband, harried wife, obnoxious two boys and toddler girl, 

and a pair of young women, one of whom is "Miss Fulham," off to the Miss England pageant in Bexborough, 

and frantically jealous of the Miss Mayfair, who is also on the train, and getting all the attention.  These provide what passes for comic relief, although some of it is a bit too close to the bone (especially when the fat husband abandons his family to go to the pub - but don't worry, the wife eventually grows a spine by the end of the film, thanks to a dance with Geoff of all things).

Anyway, there are (predictably) no rooms at the inn, so everyone has to bunk down on the (crowded) beach.  The next day is more fun 

but Catherine can't stop thinking of the bereaved husband, and eventually gets it into her head that something terrible is going to happen to him and ditches Geoff (who ends up with Miss Fulham, who misses her competition to commiserate with him (she has also been dumped)) and catches a ride with the dishonest manager of a troupe of boardwalk entertainers absconding with the take.  Meanwhile our widower has been shown reading Shelley poems lauding suicide and somehow has access to a sophisticated chemistry set that can produce poisonous gases.  Will Catherine get there in time to save him?  Well, watch it if you're a Lockwood completist, but you can probably guess the answer.