The Hurricane Express

John Wayne's career had an interesting trajectory to begin with; after having worked as a prop assistant and extra in silent films he eventually got his big break as the lead in the epic 1930 western The Big Trail. Fox Studios signed Wayne up as a leading man, but after the box office failure of The Big Trail they dropped him after just two more films and he was forced to slink his way back to small supporting roles. The low budget studio Mascot Pictures offered a partial reprieve to this, giving Wayne leading roles in their serials. The Hurricane Express is the 2nd of three serials that Wayne made for the studio.

The serial starts off with some lofty talk about civilisation and progress having given birth to new vehicles such as the plane. Wayne plays Larry Baker, an airplane pilot. The story isn't initially about him though... Jim Baker (Larry's dad) is a railroad engineer who operates a train known as the Hurricane Express. He boasts that it's the 'fastest train' in the country, despite the fact that it's becoming dated due to the rise of commercial flight. Before you know it, Jim gets killed due to industrial espionage, and it's up to Larry to find his father's killer and bring him to justice. The killer is a mysterious character known only as 'the Wrecker'... he hijacks trains and wrecks them, wearing a variety of lifelike human masks to conceal his true identity.

Any hope for an interesting subtext about new technologies supplanting old ones goes out the window in the first episode. The serial runs for 12 chapters, and it quickly becomes very episodic and repetitive, though I guess that's a redundant criticism as a 1930s serial isn't really the same thing as a television show or a film. Larry gets framed and compromised over and over again in his quest to catch the Wrecker, and the Wrecker's identity is kept hidden right up until the final episode. Each episode finishes on a startling cliffhanger (such as our hero crashing his plane) and each following episode is almost half-made up of footage that recaps from the previous episode (meaning that the serial isn't really anywhere near as long as it seems). Be prepared for lots of shots of John Wayne looking indignant and throwing punches in that shaky sped-up way common to silent films and early talkies.

Some of the supporting actors are pretty damn terrible, their stilted delivery of pulpish dialogue makes the still relatively inexperienced Wayne seem like a superstar. Wayne is probably at his best in the first episode when Larry's dad gets killed right before his eyes, it prompts one of the most naked displays of grief I've ever seen from the actor. It belies his youth, because it certainly isn't the way the older Wayner would've opted to play such a scene. Also watch out for an early appearance from Fred 'Snowflake' Toones in his first major role. Toones would go on to have a big career as comedy black characters (the kind that were later disparaged by the civil rights movement for reinforcing racist stereotypes).

You can't really judge these serials by standards used to review regular films... they're cheaply made, inconsistent, poorly edited, flippantly constructed and some episodes only run for about 7 minutes if you don't include the recap. A lot of the plot mechanics really push credibility, but if you're up for nearly 4 hours of rubber face masks, tommy guns, car chases, parachutes, train wrecks and lots of brawling, then you might enjoy The Hurricane Express in a nostalgic sort of way. I'd strongly advise against watching more than an episode at a time, it isn't designed to be watched in one big sitting and doing so will just make you hate it.

DIRECTOR: Armand Shaeffer and J. P. McGowan.
WRITER/SOURCE: Colbert Clark, Barney Sarecky, J. P. McGowan, Wyndham Gittens and George Morgan.
KEY ACTORS: John Wayne, Shirley Grey, Edmund Breese, Tully Marshall, Fred Toones

RELATED TEXTS
- The two other serials that John Wayne made for Mascot Pictures were The Shadow of the Eagle and The Three Muskateers.
- Mascot Pictures were the first studio to produce a serial with sound, The King of the Kongo.