sol- Keen on saving the neck of a burglar who has been framed for a mob murder she witnessed overseas, a penniless London chorus girl stows away on a non-stop flight to New York and has to evade the mobsters who have also boarded in this crime thriller directed by Robert Stevenson in his pre-Disney days. As one might be able to deduce from such a complicated plot description alone, the movie is rife in convenient coincidences and implausible events, but it makes for relatively amusing viewing, provided one does not think about it too much. There are some great supporting turns, particularly from Francis L. Sullivan as the daunting main mobster, Desmond Tester in a comic relief part as a music student with too much spare time on his hands and Athene Seyler as his overbearing aunt. The real star of the show though is the titular aircraft that the protagonist boards and while the film is rather slow leading up to the reveal of the craft (35 minutes in), it is worth the wait. Spanning two floors with balconies and cabins that make the interiors look more like a ship than a plane, it has to rate as one of the most imaginative aircrafts ever conceived for a motion picture, adding some delightful to kookiness to what otherwise might be a rather ordinary tale. The special effects are pretty remarkable for 1937 too - both inside and outside of the plane. Of course, it feels a little odd to talk so much about the plane and so little about the rest of the movie, but given the choice of title, it seems clear that the producers also knew that the plane was their best asset here.

Robert J. Maxwell Anna Lee is a cute English blond, who kept her looks as she aged, stranded in New York after her show closes. She witnesses a murder. An innocent vagrant is convicted and sentenced to death, but Lee, who has by this time returned home to London, knows the real murderer. She runs to Scotland Yard but the Inspector, handsome young John Loder, dismisses her as just another publicity-seeking showgirl.Desperate to save the vagrant, who will be executed in two days, Lee stows away aboard a flying boat. Other passengers, by the most improbable coincidences, include Loder, the actual murder (Francis L. Sullivan), a small boy who is a violin virtuoso, a blackmailer, and assorted others.Sullivan is not the blustering hefty ham of his later years. Here, he's elephantine but soft spoken, almost effete, well greased. Anna Lee is no more than another pretty English girl. Nova Pilbeam or Madeleine Carol could have handled the role. But Lee's allure had an interesting feature in that its zenith lasted for twenty years or more. Her career, in fact, lasted 71 years, from 1932 to 2003.There are bits of drollery in the dialog, none of it overdone. The setting -- the remnants of the Great Depression in 1938 -- are neatly evoked. Lee can't afford the cup of coffee and the ham sandwich she orders at the drugstore counter -- total, twenty cents.And the airplane taking all those passenger to New York is a sight to behold. Private compartments, as on a train, a dining room, an observation deck. Surely Hitchcock would have handled it differently but this isn't to be dismissed as junk by any means. The plot is its weakest part, but it doesn't torpedo the rest of the film.

mark.waltz Imagine this---it's 1937, and you can get from London to New York on the White Star Line of jets without stopping, unless of course you find a few delays on Cloud 9 to be stopping. Chorus girl Anna Lee has witnessed a murder, and a detective, the killer, and a blackmailer are also aboard, observing her. This plane is so glamorous, it has actual suites for its passengers, as well as a deck outside of the fast-moving air vehicle. Lee has stowed away on board, afraid of going to Scotland Yard on the fear she'll be made a suspect, and the detective secretly arranges for her to get the last available suite. There's also a saxophone playing brat on board who always ends up being around when danger is lurking, and he ends up being a hero of sorts.The first third of the movie is actually deadly dull, but once the passengers are on board and the plane has taken off, it picks up a bit of speed. Then, it becomes an eye-rolling account of movie fantasy that could never happen in air traffic. The only thing it is missing is a pool! The killer is not afraid of taking others out to get to Lee, so a few other bodies line up along the way. And once the plane is halfway over the Atlantic, the whole passenger list is in jeopardy. Of course, detective John Loder makes a daring attempt to turn things around, and this sequence is so far out there, you can't help but laughing out loud. The site of Athene Seyler as the little saxophone player's aunt waking up in the middle of it is another moment of unintended hilarity. Of course, Anna Lee, whom audiences adored as Lila Quartermain on "GH" and the sweet Sister Margaretta in "The Sound of Music" (as well as the well-intentioned but nosy neighbor in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?") is strikingly lovely. Only 24 when this film came out, she had a nice if not star making career as a leading lady, and is utterly charming. Francis L. Sullivan made a career out of playing nasty villains, and this is one of the most dastardly. This is a major curio for fans of British cinema, and an interesting follow-up to "The Tunnel" and "Things to Come".

Arun Vajpey I first heard of Non-stop New York while browsing, of all things, the Aurum Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction films. The only reason that this film was included in that book was because it is 'futuristic' by 3 years; it was made in 1937 while the main action takes place in 1940. One interesting point is that the filmmakers did not know that WW2 had started by then and so there is no mention of it.For some reason, the film is very obscure, only 39 viewers (including me) having voted for it on IMDb at the time of this writing. But is a fast moving little thriller full of incisive British wit. The film is so quintessentially British that one cannot help but notice that even the 'Americans' are local actors wincing with their attempts at transatlantic accents. But for this one minor flaw, the film is thoroughly enjoyable with perfect casting and good, if lightweight performances. An added bonus, certainly from my own perspective, is that most of the action takes place on board a Transatlantic Clipper, one of those seaplanes that were so glamorous in the 1930s. A definite Collector's item and I am the proud owner of a good quality VHS tape.