Transatlantic (1931) DVD-R

Starring Edmund Lowe, Lois Moran, John Halliday, Greta Nissen, Myrna
Loy, Jean Hersholt
Directed by William K. Howard

Print: black/white
Runtime: 78 min.
Genre: comedy
Print Quality: B

Adhering to a formula that would later be popularized further in Grand
Hotel, Transatlantic is one of the best of the "multi-story" films of the
early 1930s. As a luxurious ocean liner makes its way across the Atlantic
Ocean, the audience is made privy to the travails of several of its
passengers. Edmund Lowe heads the cast as Monty Greer, a suave
gambler who falls in love with Judy (Lois Moran), the daughter of
immigrant lens grinder Rudolph Kramer (Jean Hersholt). In trying to
recover some valuable securities stolen from banker Henry Graham
(John Halliday), Greer finds himself in the middle of a fierce gun battle in
the ship's engine room. Meanwhile, Graham, who has been cheating on
his wife Kay (Myrna Loy) with sexy dancer Sigrid Carline (Greta Nissen), is
murdered by person or persons unknown. And that's only three of the
plot strands in this marvelously complex shipboard thriller. In almost
constant reissue well into the 1940s, Transatlantic was also very nearly
transformed into a TV series in the late 1950s; though this project never
flew, vestiges of the original can be detected in the popular all-star TV
weekly of the 1970s, The Love Boat. Of special interest is the
Oscar-winning art direction by Gordon Wiles and the cinematography of
James Wong Howe, both of whom employ techniques that anticipated
Orson Welles' Citizen Kane by ten years.