The Interrupted Journey

The Interrupted Journey
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Daniel Birt
Produced by	Anthony Havelock-Allan
Written by	Michael Pertwee
Starring	Richard Todd Valerie Hobson Christine Norden Tom Walls
Music by	Stanley Black
Cinematography	Erwin Hillier
Edited by	Danny Chorlton
Production company	Valiant Films
Distributed by	British Lion Film Corporation
Release dates	12 October 1949
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	£126,179 (UK)[1]

The Interrupted Journey is a 1949 British thriller film directed by Daniel Birt and starring Valerie Hobson, Richard Todd, Christine Norden and Tom Walls.^[2] In the film, a man fleeing with his mistress narrowly escapes a train crash after he pulls the emergency cord and is wracked with guilt. The railways scenes were shot at Longmoor in Hampshire.^[3] The film bore a tragic resemblance to the Winsford train crash only the year before in which 24 people died.

Plot

John North, a struggling writer, is running away with his mistress. After meeting her in London he is sure they are being followed both in the street and at the railway cafe where they have a cup of tea. Once they are on the train he still can't rid himself of his unease as they sit discussing their new life together. Once she is asleep, North goes out into the corridor to try and gather his thoughts and it is then he again sees the man he believes has been following them. In a fit of panic, North pulls the communication cord and jumps off the train. By chance the train is stopped just a couple of minutes away from his house. When he gets there he finds his wife, Carol, waiting for him as usual, as though nothing were wrong. Feeling a burst of fresh affection for her, he embraces her.

As they are embracing the sound of a massive train crash reaches the house. Carol immediately runs to help the victims, while John stands there stunned as he realizes it is the train he has just left that has been involved in the disaster. After they run down to help North walks amidst the chaos and from a shattered carriage he catches sight of a lifeless arm sticking out of the wreckage that clearly belongs to his lover Susan Wilding. She and everybody else in the carriage has been killed in the collision. North chooses to say nothing about his presence on the train to his wife, maintaining that he returned from London by road.

Over the next few days North is guilt-ridden as the details of the crash emerge. After the train stopped when he pulled the cord, it was struck by a goods train. There are dozens dead and injured and bodies are still being dug out from the wreckage. North's problems increase with the appearance of Clayton, an idiosyncratic British Railways crash inspector, who begins to ask questions that clearly unnerve North. North denies any connection with anyone on the train, although Clayton has recovered documents connecting North and his mistress which were found on the man who had been following them, a private detective hired by her husband, who had also died in the crash.

Unable any longer to keep the pretence up, North admits to his wife that he was on the train and pulled the cord and that he was running away with another woman. In spite of his confession she decides to stand by him as his renewed love for her is clear. He then steels himself to confess to Clayton, only to hear on the radio that the crash had been caused by a failed signal rather than his pulling the cord. In spite of this they still go to Clayton who admits that he won't make anything more of North's actions as "he doesn't want any more lives to be lost in the wreckage". North and his wife go home, apparently to hear no more about the case.

The next day, however, Clayton returns with Inspector Waterson who has orders to bring North in for questioning. Before the train crash, it has now been discovered, Mrs Wilding was shot through the heart. Waterson insists that North killed her and then jumped off the train, but North refuses to confess to this. After making his statement he is free to go, but with a cloud now hanging over him and the prospect of being hanged for murder. Now even his wife is losing faith in his innocence, and when the police uncover a revolver in the garden, it seems he is certain to be hanged.

North goes on the run from the police, visiting the Wilding house in London, and trying to discover if Mr Wilding is still alive, as he is listed amongst the railway crash dead. Wilding's mother insists to him that she has identified her son's body. He then travels down to the hotel in Plymouth where he had planned to stay with his mistress, and finds another person there under North's assumed name. It turns out to be Mr Wilding, who had been on the train and murdered his wife, and then made off. The two men confront each other and Wilding shoots North between the eyes.

North comes to, back on the train, having just stepped out into the corridor. Instead of jumping off, North quietly returns to Susan Wilding. This time it is she who pulls the cord, sensing that his heart is not really in their affair any more, and tells him to go back to his wife. He returns to his wife, and they embrace. He hears the sound of whistles on the track and fears another collision, but it is just the train moving off again after the delay.

Cast

• Valerie Hobson – Carol North
• Richard Todd – John North
• Christine Norden – Susan Wilding
• Tom Walls – Mr Clayton
• Ralph Truman – Inspector Waterson
• Vida Hope – Miss Marchment, owner of Danver's Hotel
• Alexander Gauge – Jerves Wilding
• Dora Bryan – Waitress at Station Cafe
• Arnold Ridley – Mr Saunders
• Cyril Smith – George, the barman
• Arthur Lane – Constable Cowley
• Nigel Neilson – Sergeant Sanger
• Dora Sevening – Wilding's mother
• Elsie Wagstaff – Wilding's Maid
• Alan Gordon – Ticket Inspector
• Vincent Ball – 1st Rescue Worker at Crash Site
• Jack Vyvian – 2nd Rescue Worker at Crash Site
• Roger Moore – Soldier in Paddington Café
• Gwynneth Vaughan – Girl with the Soldier

Production

Tony Havelock-Allen was running a production company, Constellation Films. Daniel Birt was an editor who wanted to direct and brought Interrupted Journey to the company. Havelock-Allen was married to Valerie Hobson at the time and he also felt the movie might make a good vehicle for Richard Todd who had just become a star with The Hasty Heart. The producer later recalled:

I didn't think much of the project, but if you have a company you have to do something, because the money keeps on going out. It had no success at all, however. Daniel Birt was obviously not going to be a great director; editors can always make films but only the very talented ones can make good films.^[4]

To help accurately portray police officers of the Plymouth City Police, Havelock-Allan wrote to the Chief Constable, Mr J.F. Skittery, asking for advice on the design of police uniforms. Skittery responded by compiling a small hand-written book containing photographs of clothing, helmets, badges and equipment, and enclosed enough helmet badges, collar badges and buttons to supply all of the cast in the film who would be portraying Plymouth City Police officers.^[5]

Reception

The film's ending is sometimes considered contrived by critics, as Todd realises that much of the plot has been a nightmare and awakens from this dream sequence shortly before the conclusion for a happy ending. However it has been noted that the whole film "simulates the qualities of a nightmare" through its use of coincidences and the lighting.^[6] The Encyclopedia of Film Noir describes it as a "superior film noir" and compares its ending to the 1944 The Woman in the Window.^[7]

References

Bibliography

• Mayer, Geoff & McDonnell, Brian. Encyclopedia of Film Noir. Greenwood Press, 2007.
• Gripton, Peter. A History of Greatham. Las Atalayas, 2003.

External links

The Interrupted Journey at the Internet Movie Database