SEVEN SINNERS (director: Albert de Courville; screenwriter: Sidney Gilliat/Frank Launder/L. DuGarde Peach, Austin Melford play "The Wrecker" by Arnold Ridley; cinematographer: Max Green; cast: Felix Aylmer (Sir Charles Webber), Thomy Bourdelle (Monsieur Paul Turbé), Constance Cummings (Caryl Fenton), Joyce Kennedy (Elizabeth Wentworth), Edmund Lowe (Harwood), O.B. Clarence (Registrar), Allan Jeayes (Heinrich Wagner), Henry Oscar (Axel Hoyt), 1936 - UK)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A murderer who performs not one train wreck or two, but three. Two glib Americans, one a private detective named Harwood (Lowe) and the other a perky insurance investigator, Caryl Fenton (Cummings), get involved with the murder case when the drunk Harwood, costumed as a devil at a ball in Nice, finds a dead body and when he calls the police, the body is missing.
Fast-paced action and witty one-liners, allow this Hitchcock-like story to be both amusing and thrilling. And the surprise ending is a beaut, which should catch you off-guard, as you will most likely be misled and unable to guess who the murderer is.
Lowe and Cummings are even funnier than the Thin Man (William Powell/Myrna Loy) couple, as they constantly go at each other with gibes and churlish remarks, with her being anxious to get him to go back to Scotland with her and recover some stolen jewelry, the case they are both assigned to. With her nagging him to hurry up, as they rush to catch the train, he tells her, "It takes him one minute to strip and one minute to dress, that she should wait for him, he'll see her in a minute," as she responds, "You better make it two."
Boarding the Paris express, the two Americans are in the film's first train wreck, as the missing body Harwood reported, turns up dead in the wreck. After telling the French police investigator, a Monsieur Paul Turbé (Thomy Bourdelle) about this, Harwood boldly bets him 5,000 that he will catch the murderer. The victim is identified as a Heinrich Wagner (Allan Jeayes), with a connection to an Argentenian living in London named Axel Hoyt (Oscar), as Harwood discovers a letter on the dead man and an earring with a unique design on it.
In London, the couple find Hoyt to be wary of them and in no mood to be talking with them. When they return to his flat in the evening, he is gone and someone from across the street is firing on them. The Americans start putting two and two together, uncovering a photo of Wagner attending a Guild dinner in 1931 with Hoyt and a woman identied as Elizabeth Wentworth (Joyce Kennedy). So they attend a charity affair given by an organization called "Pilgrims of Peace," where they find and question Wentworth and get her concerned that they are on her trail.
Suspicious of Hoyt, the two Americans track him down through the registrar's office, and find out that he is legally declared dead, signed by a doctor. Confiding with Turbé, they tell him they are going after the doctor. But the doctor's housekeeper tells them, that he left suddenly after receiving a call and just caught a train. The train he is on, is the second wreck, as he is killed when the train plows into a lorry that was stuck in the middle of the tracks.
Uncovering another earring on the dead doctor to match the other, the Americans and Turbé realize that this is the same design that Wentworth and the charity's leader, Sir Charles Webber (Felix), have as their logo. They also figure out from the criminal rap sheet on Hoyt, as a gun smuggler, that their organization is probably running some kind of scam. They also discover on stage at the "Pilgrims of Peace" benefit, that Hoyt is there, posing as a reverend.
The film concludes with the third train wreck, as all the characters involved in the plot are on board the train, as the ever confident Harwood tells Turbé, he will get the murderer and he should be prepared to make an arrest when he is given a signal.
Jolly good fun. A real delightful and snappy film, featuring mystery, humor, snappy dialogue, and a great surprise ending.
REVIEWED ON 8/13/99 GRADE: B+
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
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