HALF WAY TO SHANGHAI (1942)

Two men in a truck, George Zucco and Lionel Royce, go crashing through a roadway checkpoint in order to board a train to Rangoon. When an official asks Zucco what he does for a living, he replies, "I’m a German spy" and they all laugh—but he is a German spy who is looking for a rogue spy (Charles Wagenheim) who is carrying a map of China's main munitions dumps which could be used by the Japanese in their war against China. The rogue spy Peale intends to sell the map to the highest bidder, but Zucco and Royce plan to take it for free. Also on the train: Kent Taylor, an engineer who worked on construction of the Burma Road; Irene Hervey, an ex-flame of Taylor's who is on her way to an arranged marriage with a rich man she's never met; Charlotte Wynters, a famous female pilot turned reporter with pro-Nazi sympathies; Fay Helm, her assistant who may not feel the same way about Nazis; and Henry Stephenson, a retired British officer. Wagenheim, realizing that Zucco is after him, hides in Taylor's compartment and winds up knocking Taylor out before Zucco enters and demands the map. But Wagenheim has hidden the map somewhere on the train and Zucco kills him and tries to frame Taylor, though a detective (J. Edward Bromberg) doesn't buy it. The map has wound up in Wynters' briefcase and she joins forces with Zucco, buying the silence of Helm who knows about the map. The climax occurs in a blackout and with a well-staged escape attempt on top of the train. This spy thriller deserves to be better known than it is. The one-hour running time and physical production mark it as a B-movie second feature, but the screenplay is solid and the acting quite good. Busy B-lead Kent Taylor is fine as a second string hero and Zucco, as usual, is a formidable villain. Bromberg and Wagenheim are standouts, and Mary Gordon is good as the mild-mannered wife of a doctor, but Charlotte Wynters is a bit wooden as the pilot. Willie Fung has a short scene as a Chinese peasant who is reading a Flash Gordon book. There are enough side plots and characters so that the film moves along nicely. As a fan of train thrillers, I quite enjoyed this. Pictured is Kent Taylor. [YouTube]