The Ghost Train 1941

5.9 / 10   31 vote(s)
Comedy Horror Mystery Thriller

Mismatched travellers are stranded overnight at a lonely rural railway station. They soon learn of local superstition about a phantom train which is said to travel these parts at dead of night, carrying ghosts from a long-ago train wreck in the area.

Release Date 1941-05-05
Runtime 1h 25m
Directors Walter Forde, Jack E. Cox
Producer Edward Black
Writers J.O.C. Orton, Arnold Ridley, Val Guest, Marriott Edgar

A storm causes a disparate group of passengers to become stranded overnight at a rural railway station. Before the superstitious station master leaves them for the night, he regales them with a tale of a phantom train that reputedly travels the adjacent closed line at night. He returns shortly afterwards, dies of shock - and we get treated to a rather theatrical mystery as they investigate what's going on... Kathleen Harrison is quite good as the dipsomaniac "Miss Bourne" as is Raymond Huntley as "Price" but the rest of the cast struggle to eclipse the domineering performance of the film's star Arthur Askey who, frankly, annoys his fellow travellers and the audience in equal measure. I suspect that those who enjoy this film will be fans of his Vaudevillian style of comedy; I'm afraid it doesn't much work for me and what could have been a fun little ghost story ended up being quite disappointing.

CinemaSerf