A Message from Mars
- London
- 1913
Laughs and thrills come thick and fast in this Edgar Wallace comedy-thriller with a hair-raising car versus train chase.
Laughs and thrills are dealt out in equal measure in this lively Edgar Wallace comedy-thriller, which has a terrific car versus train chase as its hair-raising climax. A Scotland Yard inspector, deftly played by Jack Hulbert (who co-wrote the film), uncovers a dastardly plot by a notorious gang of crooks - unusually led by a woman (Genevieve Tobin) - to rob a train of its gold bullion cargo. A fair head of steam builds up as our hero attempts to save the woman as well as save the day.
The railway scenes were filmed on the Bath-Westbury and Limpley Stoke-Camerton lines in Wiltshire.
Thanks to decades of DVD and online publishing, not to mention archive revivals and restorations, more of Britain’s screen heritage is available today than ever before. You might even be forgiven for imagining that the whole of British cinema is now just a click away.
But much of that history - from the silent era to the relatively recent past - remains out of reach. This selection from the vaults, hand-picked by the BFI's curators, goes some way to remedying that. These fresh rediscoveries offer something for all tastes: whether futuristic fantasy, battle-of-the-sexes comedy, subversive provocation or an Indian-British rarity.