An early version of a TARDIS, as it’s a lot roomier inside than out. I kept waiting for an Olympic size swimming pool to show up.
Non-Stop New York (1937) is an odd, comedic, tension movie that comes off a little flat – although some of that is the quality of the print. Jennie Carr, aspiring British dancer, is in New York for a stab at her dream job. The night of the closing of the Broadway show she’s working in she runs into charming young lawyer Billy Cooper, who invites her to his place for a meal.
When she discovers a homeless man is taking advantage of the food, she chases him out, and then gets chased out herself by other men crowding into Cooper’s apartment. The next day, as she’s leaving for home on a passenger liner, she learns of Cooper’s murder and the arrest of the homeless man, named Abel.
Appalled, she tries to persuade the Captain of the liner of the situation, but when it comes out that her baggage contains stolen jewelry, she ends up with her own problems: stuck in a British prison for six months. Meanwhile, despite world wide appeals – no, really! – no one can find the mysterious woman Abel claims could clear him, and he is sentenced to the electric chair.
The killers are waiting for Jennie to get out of prison. They don’t need her dead, just discouraged, but her moral sense comes to her rescue and she manages a visit to Scotland Yard, which, unfortunately, is fairly disbelieving. Then there’s nothing for it but to find a way onto the Non-Stop New York, a literal flying boat, complete with outside balconies for the more adventurous flyer.
Well, the killer is waiting to take the closest thing to a witness down, but Scotland Yard is there, too, and soon we have a fake General of Paraguay, a con-man, and Jennie frantically circling the plane, all trying to survive.
Too bad about that prodigious young musician and his interest in muffling his sax with part of a … parachute.
There are some interesting elements here, but they don’t come together because we don’t really develop an empathy for the characters. Perhaps the most charismatic character meets a swift end; some characters who suffer death are barely accorded the honor of cardboard; Jennie is a little too chittie-chatty without being interesting, and, indeed, her slightly amoral mother could have gotten more screen-time to the benefit of the story.
Still, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, even if the plane had me hooting with laughter.
