The Ghost Train Murder (1959) User Reviews

The Ghost Train Murder

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 20 May 2021]

A body of a young woman is found on the ghost train ride.

It is a case for Superintendent Duggan of Scotland Yard. The dead woman was a Hungarian refugee who was recently tried for shoplifting.

She had been living in some lodgings and her landlady believes that she had a lot of men friends. One of these male friends called Johnny becomes a suspect as his alibi is weak.

However Duggan brings some undercover police women in to keep an eye at the lodgings.

They uncover a shoplifting ring and the landlady is part of it preying on vulnerable women to turn to shoplifting.

It is an episode that takes a while to get going. It finds its footing once the female undercover constables arrive. The episode moves up a few gears.

Jill Ireland plays one of the shoplifters. Carole Ann Ford plays the young woman who thought she saw a dead body in the ghost train.

Quite an imaginative story.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 16 February 2023]

A couple enjoying The Ghost Train at a funfair are disturbed when the young woman believes she saw a dead body besides the track during the ride.

I've seen a couple of these now, and I'd argue that this is perhaps the best of them. It's an interesting storyline, with a good set of characters, intriguing case, and a good set of suspects.

Best scene, perhaps the department store theft and transformation, quite imaginative.

Look out for a young Carole Anne Ford, who plays the girl who saw the body on The Ghost Train, and also look out for Angela Browne, who played a Police Sergeant.

Once again, seeing the shops and fashions of the time is a real treat. Look how smart people were back then, not a tracksuit or pair of jogging bottoms in sight.

7/10.

One of the best Scotland Yard featurettes.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 23 August 2018]

Superintendent Duggan of the Yard (Russell Napier) investigates the murder of a young Hungarian refugee, Anna Bartory, whom was discovered at a fairground in the ghost train stabbed to death by knitting needles. On visiting the Paddington lodging house where she lived, Duggan learns that she had recently been fined for shoplifting, had a lot of men friends and owed her landlady, Mrs Williams (Mary Laura Wood), a month's rent. A diamond engagement ring found on the dead girl's finger is traced to a young lad called Johnny Benson (Robert Sansom) whose parents vehemently disagreed with him going out with her. Since none of Anna's other boyfriends, with the exception of a salesman called Warner who has a rock solid alibi, can be traced, Johnny becomes the chief suspect for her murder. In addition to the ring, Duggan has recovered a letter he wrote to Anna from her old room at the lodging house in which he threatened to do something drastic unless she agreed to run away with him. Incidentally, Anna's old room has been taken by another young girl, Nora Hinton (Diane Aubrey), who appeared very nervous and seemed to know more about the dead girl than she was letting on. She has since vanished. Where? Despite the evidence against young Benson, Duggan is keen to investigate the lodging house so two plain clothed police officers, Sgt Collins (Mary Greenaway) and Sgt Brown (Angela Brown), from the undercover division are assigned to put the place under surveillance and to keep tabs on the three young ladies who are lodging there. Their investigation uncovers a sophisticated shoplifting gang lead by Mrs Williams who seeks out young wayward girls and gets them into her debt in order to force them into a life of crime. Was Anna killed because she had got cold feet, wanted out and threatened to expose the gang? But, who is the mastermind behind the clever operation and has Nora Hinton met a similar fate to that of Anna Bartory?

One of the best in the long running and popular Scotland Yard series of crime featurettes, which used to be played in cinemas as supporting features. Inevitably there was weaker episodes, but the best of them included attractive plot elements and it was amazing the considerable value for money that the film makers were able to pack into these tiny movies that only ran for 30 minutes.

This one contains a neat twist in its tail within its story about a crooked lodging house that blackmails its vulnerable young inhabitants into a life of crime (the identity of the mastermind isn't that easily guessable) and its semi-documentary approach to the police methods used by the Yard is insightful and interesting. Indeed some of the settings used in this series, including a phoney marriage bureau in The Lonely House (1957) episode and the one featured here are very appealing and could have been expanded upon a lot further than was possible here. The marriage bureau, for instance, was used to great tongue in cheek effect in an episode of the classic 1960's espionage series The Avengers. Whether or not the makers of that show were inspired by Scotland Yard, I cannot say, but I was reminded of that show when I saw it.

There are some rather deft and moderately light hearted touches to be found here like the way in which the shoplifters make good their escape from a department store by taking some clothes, slipping into the fitting rooms as though they were ordinary customers trying something on, altering their appearance and walking out the door undetected by security. Some of the locations are a joy to watch including a climatic scene set at Waterloo station, which looked very much the same then as it does today.

One of the other delights about watching Scotland Yard is the number of familiar faces that crop up in their supporting casts: in this case Jill Ireland appears as one of the shoplifters. In addition, a number of interesting British directors worked on the series including Ken Hughes, Montgomery Tully and Peter Duffell.