"The Silk Express" is a strange little B mystery from Warner Brothers. It's also not all that good. It begins with some manufacturers needing silk for their clothing BUT some jerks have control of all the domestic supplies of silk--and they naturally want to way overcharge for the material. So, Kilgore (Neil Hamilton) personally goes to arrange for the silk to be sent by train from the West Coast to the East. But the jerks who control the silk market will stop at NOTHING to stop the shipment--even if it means killing in order to stop that train. Along the way, murders start happening and soon a cop comes aboard and threatens to stop the shipment.This film has so many dopey clichés--a paralyzed man who is 100% frozen except for his eyes is about to use them to identify the killer when HE is murdered, a black guy called 'Snowflake' (uggh!) and much more that make this seem like an ultra-low budget Agatha Christie knock-off. None of it is particularly inspired or well written. The only thing that interested me in the least was seeing Guy Kibbee playing a person who wasn't stupid--a real departure for this character actor! Silly non-sense.

One can count on one hand, nay, one finger, the number of Hollywood movies that deal with the importation of silk from Asia. This may be the only one and it goes way back to the beginning of talkies. Using this subject as the basis for a fairly good mystery that involves murder aboard a fast-moving train is rare indeed. The cast consists mainly of well known character actors under contract to Warner Brothers. Guy Kibbee plays Railway Detective McDuff who wants to slow the train down. Since the silk traders must get their shipment to New York within a certain time frame, the railway detective must be dealt with by the entrepreneurs. Competitors are also at work trying to sabotage the entire operation to make sure the train does not reach New York on schedule. They will stop at nothing including murder to stop the train so they can corner the market on silk. Kibbee did well when his role was limited to a few lines. When given a large role as in this movie, his loud banter becomes irritating at times rather than amusing. It is good to see the antics of Allen Jenkins toned down. He is actually a fairly decent actor when given the right role as in this film. He too tended to overact outrageously when given the opportunity. The rest of the cast including the two leads are adequate for their parts. The result is an entertaining little whodunit. And you may be surprised at the end unless you pay really close attention to detail.

The Silk Express is a fast moving crime story loaded with Warners' supporting actor regulars: Guy Kibbee, Robert Barrat, Harold Huber, Allen Jenkins and Arthur Hohl. For train fans, there are scenes of an actual train filmed for the movie, along with stock footage of a train going through a snow storm on the way to New York. If the basis of the screen story seems odd, about importing a load of silk to break the "corner" a speculator has on silk supplies, at least the story is different. Warner Bros. in 1933 had an unequaled team of professionals who could turn out polished movies on the cheap. There are probably as many scenes in this 62 minute movie as a 90 minute movie now. And, just like in another Warners crime movie, Fog Over Frisco, when someone receives a telegram, you see an authentic looking telegram on the screen. The only things out of place in The Silk Express are the leads, Neil Hamilton and Sheila Terry, apparently brought in on a trial basis to see if they were Warners material. They did not stick around at Warners. Soon they would have company, as Jack Warner's cost cutting at the studio caused a migration of acting talent to other studios (among them Loretta Young and William Powell). The Silk Express is an example of the quality that Warner Bros. routinely put on the screen from 1931 to 1934, movies set in the Depression-era present that have not dated as badly as the studio product from MGM and other studios.

Fast paced little mystery yarn features handsome NEIL HAMILTON in the lead as a man anxious to get his shipment of silk safely removed at the train's destination--but hampered in his efforts by a murder aboard The Silk Express.Hamilton is determined and spunky as the lead, a far departure from his fate in a film from 1944 (SINCE YOU WENT AWAY) where he was only shown in a photo within a picture frame as Claudette Colbert's husband.The supporting cast has a number of familiar Warner Bros. faces: Allen Jenkins, Guy Kibbe, Robert Barratt, Vernon Steele--but the round-up of suspects by detective Guy Kibbe is just one of the many clichés in the script which is riddled with just such moments. It comes across as Agatha Christie, without the wit, not that this is from a Christie play or novel.Guy Kibbe as the detective is overly emphatic in his gruffness, as are just about all of the performances. It's strictly for movie buffs who aren't fussy about how over-baked acting was back in 1933 melodramas.