Starting off as a noir piece about a mob killing amidst the Depression-era of New York, "Non-Stop New York" doesn't settle long enough for a thriller dynamic with a love story and some sociological tension. The movie is a non-stop roller coaster ride filled to the brim with wit, pungent casting and a futuristic-looking plane that seems to be years ahead of Howard Hughes' own Spruce Goose. Except of course that this Spruce Goose is seemingly a mini-ocean liner with propellers!
A zestful English actress, Jennie Carr (Anna Lee), is penniless and is eager for at least a cup of coffee. Thankfully she has enough change for a coffee, which she promptly drops on the floor when bumping into a guy named Billy (James Pirrie). Billy is a mob attorney and wants out of the business, only Jeannie doesn't know that. She is invited to Billy's apartment and then ejected when the mob boss Brant (Francis L. Sullivan) and some goons arrive and a shot rings out. Jennie had seen the men but not the murder, and there is a vagrant who witnessed it and is charged for a crime he didn't commit. You see, it looks as if the film is building to another noir until we enter Hitchcock terrain via a Trans-Atlantic flight from New York to London.
What is delightfully escapist fun about "Non-Stop New York" is the eclectic cast of characters including the aforementioned Anna Lee's Jennie Carr, who's a little on the naive side. John Loder is the disbelieving Scotland Yard inspector who takes an interminable time to believe Anna's story (I would have trouble with her version of events too). There's also a bespectacled young musical prodigy (Desmond Tester) who annoys all passengers with his saxophone (which leads to a great joke about a parachute); Jerry Verno as a steward who has his share of double entendres, and the grand villainy of Francis L. Sullivan as Brant who pretends to be a Paraguayan general named Costello (isn't Costello normally an Irish or Italian surname?)
"Non-Stop New York" has a wildly contrived plot (why all the shenanigans to put Jennie in jail briefly and then have Brant follow her back to New York?) Still, I did not mind and found the film fluffy yet never less than breezy fun. Wait till you get to the parachute joke!
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