One-Way Ticket *** (1935, Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Conklin, Walter Connolly) – Classic Movie Review 11,236

‘SIRENS SHRIEKED THEIR SONG OF LOVE!’

Director Herbert Biberman’s 1935 Columbia Pictures black and white B-movie romantic crime melodrama One-Way Ticket is based on a novel by Ethel Turner, and stars Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Conklin and Walter Connolly.

In the grounds of a jail, Ronnie (Peggy Conklin), the daughter of prison warden Captain Bill Bourne (Walter Connolly), falls for a nice criminal Jerry (Lloyd Nolan) and he escapes in the boot of her car when she leaves. Jerry was jailed after robbing a bank of the sum his father lost when cheated out of his savings by a corrupt banker the authorities fail to convict.

The four writers (Vincent Lawrence, Joseph Anthony, Oliver H P Garrett, Grover Jones) are unable to come up with a wholly credible plot in this unlikely message tale, though nevertheless the actors do find a way to convince, and Biberman’s conscientious sincerity comes through in his decent handling of an interesting and respectable cult item.

Also in the cast are Walter Connolly, Edith Fellows, Nana Bryant, Thurston Hall, Gloria Shea, George McKay, Robert Middlemass, Willie Fung, Jack Clifford, and James Flavin.

It is the first film directed by theatre director Herbert Biberman (1900–1971). After theatre success in New York, he signed a two-picture deal with Columbia in 1934, and he followed One-Way Ticket with Meet Nero Wolfe in 1936.

Biberman had Marxist political leanings and he became one of the Hollywood Ten and was blacklisted. He was expelled from the Directors Guild of America in 1950 but his membership was posthumously restored in 1997. He married actress Gale Sondergaard in 1930 and the marriage lasted till Biberman died in 1971.

Lloyd Nolan as private detective Michael Shayne.

Lloyd Nolan (August 11, 1902 – September 27, 1985) is remembered for originating the role of private detective Michael Shayne in a series of 1940s B movies, starting with Michael Shayne: Private Detective (1940).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,236

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