User Reviews

Former loin cloth hero Jon Hall basically goes down the same path that Johnny Weissmueller was doing as Jungle Jim in that cheapy Columbia series made around the same time as this. This is a sole entry for Hall as visiting American Martin Viking who becomes involved in an adventure against his will, chased all over India for a murder he did not commit. We know from past experience that whenever a character appears wearing an eye patch they must be the villain. Or do we? It is an old friend of his in December who is mysteriously stabbed in the back with a brawl with hall for not agreeing to assist him in an attempt to prevent a violent explosion that will lead India into rebellion. It's not Hall's day for luck as he ends up all over the country, betrayed by American photojournalist Christine Larson to the military, encountering apparent double agents, and obviously going to make it out of this alive, all within under 75 minutes!

What is formula is also silly fun, perfect for the matinee crowd who had been enjoying Adventure Yarns like this since the silent era. While it looks cheaply made, some of the sets are fun for the action sequences, and the dialogue has some zany moments as well. Hall encounters the stereotypical foreign use familiar in American slang (the role that former co-star Sabu would have played had this been made a decade before) as well as several exotic women (Lisa Ferraday and Donna Martell) who aid him but make you wonder what side they are really on. Hall gets lots of laughs in a silly scene where he hops onto an odd-looking contraption on the train track, a culmination of lots of amusing but outlandish moments. Sam Katzman always made him cheap, but always with a sense of humor.

A laundry basket is delivered to a Bombay (Mumbhai) hotel room, and a dead body is removed from it by the room's occupant. The corpse is placed in bed and has its face obliterated by three close-range gunshots. The occupant leaves the room disguised as an Indian soldier. Minor diplomat Martin Viking, breezes into Bombay on his way to Lucknow to take up his post. Looking for his old commando buddy Kevin O'Hara, he goes to the aforementioned room and finds the body. His diplomatic status excuses him from lengthy Police investigation. However, he is then arrested on the Gundar Special train when stolen items are found in his luggage. Again he is released and returns to the hotel where O'Hara turns up, revealing that he had contrived to get Viking off the train since it was to be blown up in order to kill the Nawob of Janipur to stop him signing a treaty. O'Hara, it transpires, is a mercenary working for a terrorist group. A fight ensues and O'Hara is killed by a knife thrown by a watching member of the group. With his dying breath he reveals some details of the plot, including a reference to The Lame Man. Now, armed with this knowledge, the sensible thing to do would be to contact the authorities, get them to stop the train and take the Nawob into protective custody. Does Viking do that? Not on your life. Anyway there's still nearly an hour's running time left! Instead he decides to stop the train himself. This was when I realised I was watching The 39 Steps since practically every scene was faithfully reproduced. He's pursued over hill and dale by Police and terrorists. He threatens a girl into helping him, only to have her betray him to the Police. He unknowingly tries to elicit the help of the head honcho, whose club foot reveals him to be The Lame Man. The girl conveniently turns up again and mentions his story about the train, getting herself kidnapped. Locked in a dungeon cave they simply walk out via a handy crack in the rock. Viking finds the explosive on the track, but the train is coming! Commandeering a maintenance truck he drives it onto the detonators and saves the day. Real Saturday morning picture adventure if you're to too fussy.

The plot: Indian terrorists want to assassinate the Nawob of Janipur by blowing up the Gundar train. (Not sure of the spelling, but nobody should care)

The hero: Jon Hall, 15 years and about 50 pounds after "The Hurricane." Hall plays the unluckiest diplomat ever to roam the face of the earth.

First, he checks into a hotel in India to meet a friend, who has been murdered.

Result: Interview with police chief Michael Fox.

Next, while boarding a train, his bag is switched, and he is nabbed for drug possession.

Result: Interview with police chief Michael Fox.

Next, the friend (Douglas Kennedy) who supposedly was murdered shows up in Hall's hotel room. After a brief discussion of the film's plot, they end up in a fistfight. Somebody throws a knife through an open window and bumps off Kennedy, but not before he says something about a "lame man." (Perhaps he was referring to the producer, Sam Katzman.) Result: Hall goes on the lam.

He wanders into a bar, where he is set up by some babe.

Result: He gets mugged.

The dame takes pity on him and nurses him back to health. The police show up and she conks one of them on the head. Hall escapes and commandeers a plane. He has to parachute out when the fuel runs out. He gets picked up by another dame who is driving by. He convinces her to help him get through a checkpoint.

Result: She turns him in.

He escapes again. Mind you, he accomplishes all this while wearing the same suit, which unfortunately cannot disguise his enlarged buttockal area.

**SPOILERS** An unusually large, looking like a sumo wrestler in street clothes, John Hall is US diplomat Martin Viking who's on the run from both the local Indian police and a gang of Junipur Terrorists in the exciting suspense action thriller "Last Train from Bomay". Martin is trying to prevent the murder of the Newob of Junipur and his daughter the Princess by the gang of Junipur nationalist terrorists. It's the Junipur terrorists who had planted explosive charges on the rails of the train the two are traveling on: The Gundar to Luckow Special.

It was almost by accident that Martin found out what the terrorists planned to do when his friend and army buddy British Cammando Kevin O'Hara, Douglas Kennedy, tried to recruit him into that very terrorist gang! Since the end of WWII O'Hara has gotten bored with civilian life that took all the fun, for him, out of living. With O'Hara looking for some action he decides to help his friends in the Junipur Terrorist movement to start up a civil war that will give him all the action that he could possibly handle!

It was just too bad that O'Hara never lived to see his dream come true with him getting a dagger in his chest as him and Martin, who was both shocked and against O'Hara's crazy plan, had it out with the lights turned off in Martin's hotel room. The unknown and unseen killer of O'Hara was sent by his fellow Junipur Terrorists to shut him up because he was becoming a liability to the movement in him being such a loose cannon!

Facing imprisonment by the Indian Police in him being suspected in O'Hara's murder Martin's only hope is to get to the rail crossing where O'Hara planted the explosives and prevent the derailing the Gundar to Luckow Special, and killing everyone on board, in order to clear himself. This has Martin hounded all across the Indian subcontinent ending up beaten drugged and almost strangled by local police hoodlums and Junipur Terrorists.

Being the "hunk" that he is, looking like he weighs up to 300 pounds, Martin is not only surprisingly agile and acrobatic, with his movie double doing all the stunt work for him, he's also a big hit with the ladies in the movie who just can't get-in spite of how big he is- enough of him! The husky and bursting out of his clothes Martin later gets involved with American tourist Mary Anne Palmer, Christine Larson, as well as local bar girl Charlene, Lisa Farraday, who are key in his attempt in preventing the terrorists in succeeding in their bloody mission.

***SPOILERS*** There's still a number of surprises coming Martins as well as the audiences' way especially who's really behind the plot to murder the Newob and his daughter! That all has to do with what size shoe the terrorist leader is wearing! Still Martin ends up saving the day the nation-India-and the royal family of the Newob of Junipur by him stopping the terrorist from carrying out their plan in just the nick of time. That's by Martin getting to and detonating the explosive charge meant for the Gundar to Luckow Special before the train could get to it first!

LAST TRAIN FROM BOMBAY is a highly entertaining little B-movie action flick with an Indian backdrop. Our hero, as played by Jon Hall, has the unlikely moniker Viking and goes to town against a bunch of 'thuggees' who want nothing better than to assassinate him. The film is essentially a series of vibrant fight sequences in which the participates go above and beyond the call of duty to deliver energetic fun. Scenery is smashed, bodies fly across the screen and the viewer is frequently wowed by the sheer exuberance of it all.

This film had a reasonable plot but included several flaws, some of which have already been noted. Jon Hall was overweight for an action man and seemed to carry a great deal of cash, even allowing for Charlane returning some of her share of his wallet after he'd been mugged. For a former OSS man he was very foolish to turn his back on Kevin as he phoned for the police. Escaping from the caves with Mary looked ridiculously easy - they just strolled out. (Usually in these circumstances a small hole has to be widened first.) And how convenient that the exit was a short walk from where the explosives had been put on the track.

Perhaps the most inspiring members of the cast were Michael Fox as Captain Tamil and Donna Martell in her brief appearances as the Nawob's daughter.