MYSTERY JUNCTION

UK, 1951, 65 minutes, Black-and-white.

Sydney Tafler, Barbara Murray, Patricia Owens, Martin Benson.

Directed by Michael McCarthy.

An entertaining 65 minutes. This is a film about a detective story writer, recognised in a train by an old lady passenger, asking him about his work, his narrating the story being dramatised.

A prisoner is handcuffed to a police officer on the train, travelling to a court case, his being protected because he has promised to speak out against other criminals. Then, the police assistant is thrown from the train, the killer disguised as the ticket collector.

The writer and the old lady then discover two show girls hiding out in the luggage compartment, the ticket collector knocked out… The passengers in the carriage are all gathered together and, then, they are stranded at the junction because of the weather.

When the lights go out, the police officer is shot dead – and, gradual revelations of the criminal, his associates on the train, a young man who won’t reveal where he was going, confrontations, the gang driving away returning, and the various interrogations and threats, the arrival of the police in the morning, and the revelation of the killer and why.

An amusing postscript when the old lady is reading her novel and looks up at her fellow passenger and sees characters who are lookalikes of some of the villains in the story!