Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

....or life goes on at the railway station!!Every so often a fantastic little movie comes along courtesy of poverty row just to show that sometimes everything clicks together - whether the right stars (in this case all solid performers), the story, or even a surprising bit of inspired direction (from the usual journeyman E. Mason Hopper).Starting off on a train with blissful newly weds Jim (Don Dillaway) and Molly (Mary Brian) in a cute sequence where they set up their sleeping quarters as a house and play at being an old married couple. Molly writes sweet nothings in her diary but the ink spills and all too soon (one year later actually) Mary is seen alone at the station, fighting back tears and rebuffing reporter Tony Richard's (Russell Hopton) apologies for dragging her name through the mud!! What a mystery!!Jim is also at the station - in custody and being escorted to prison where he faces the electric chair!! It's the old story - Jim finds a good job under a boss who has his eye (and sometimes his arms) on a very unwilling Mary and of course Jim thinks she is encouraging him - hasn't he seen any of Mary Brian's movies, doesn't he realise that she is as sweet and true as an apple pie??? A showdown occurs, hence Jim's present situation!Aside from that dramatic main plot Hopton gives his usual splendid performance as Tony, a consumptive reporter who wants to right the terrible wrong he did to Mary and finds a way to help both her and Jim in a very extraordinary way. In fact the only weak character in the story is Jim and it's easy to see why Donald Dillaway never became a star. As well there are various peoples popping up on the train. Jackie Searle as a pesky kid, Pauline Garon as a travelling showgirl but most interesting subplot involves businessman (George Irving) who thinks he has his wife fooled when he sets off for a naughty weekend but wife has a detective on his tail. Girl proves not quite as old as he thought (as she informs him "Did you ever hear of the Mann Act, well for $25,000 I've never heard of it either"!!!) Finding who he thinks is a sympathetic listener, after telling all of his troubles he is presented with the man's card .......!!!Mary Brian was not called the "sweetest girl in pictures" for nothing and even if she was not a great actress, any film she appeared in benefited enormously just by her appeal!!

I liked this movie better than I expected I would. I particularly liked the scenes in the train station – the hustle bustle of passengers, the newsstand, and the small vignettes of travelers. I was surprised at the large number of extras given my assumption that this was a low budget film. Since I'm a sucker for "train" movies, this movie was easy to like. The character actors got the best lines and the two lead characters were kinda bland although Mary Brian always does a nice job. The stock characters (obnoxious kid, call girl, unfaithful husband, wise-cracking entertainer, private detective) were all well played as was the reporter's role. The husband certainly was quick to assume his wife's infidelity and it seems not to have occurred to him that his boss was a lecherous old snake. And the wife acts like what happened was her fault - an attitude tough to understand. I liked the ending to the movie and was surprised by it.

I was not at all impressed by this movie early on and I had to fight my desire to turn it off and try something else. Well, I am glad I did as the movie turned out to be very satisfying--even with its tiny budget and cast of no-name actors.The film begins with a couple just getting married and going on their honeymoon. Then, a year passes and suddenly the couple is a mess--the wife is upset because her husband is gone and then you find out it's because he's in prison--and about to be sent to death row! I kept thinking that I'd missed something or the reels of the film were being shown out of sequence by accident. However, why this occurred eventually made sense. The film makers deliberately wanted to confuse the audience and the sad wife eventually sits down with a reporter and recounts what has transpired. This worked...I just needed to be more patient.What had happened is that shortly after their marriage, the man got a job--not realizing his new boss was a pervert. Every chance he got, the boss kept pushing himself on the new bride. Eventually, the husband catches his boss and thinks that what was in progress was consensual. So, after killing his boss, he wanted nothing to do with his wife and refused to talk with her. I could tell you where this goes next, but don't want to spoil it. Suffice to say that the plot is actually reminiscent of "A Tale of Two Cities" and the ending is amazing. You have to see it to know what I mean. Overall, a very well made cheap film and since it's free to download from the link on IMDb, I suggest you give it a try.Great shocking ending unusual style makes you think you missed something

This film starts somewhat inauspiciously, but develops into something well worth watching.The core story of One Year Later is that of Molly, a young woman desperate to reconcile with her husband before she loses him finally and terribly to the electric chair. Jim is to die for killing his former boss, the man with whom Jim thought his wife to have been having an affair. Sure that Molly was unfaithful, Jim will not so much as listen to her. Jim has been made to board a train headed to the prison in which he is to die. Molly has got a berth on the same train, trying as she might to talk to Jim.Also riding towards death is Tony, a reporter dying of lung disease. Tony knows something of Jim and Molly's story, and wants to help in whatever way he can.Secondary characters include J. Atwell Hunt, unfaithful to his own spouse, and Greggs, whom that spouse has hired to prove the infidelity.One Year Later has its flaws. The beginning, as I indicated, is inauspicious. The secondary stories and characters should have been better developed or not developed at all. (Thus, by implication, the movie may be seen either as too short or as too long.) But the central story is rather well handled. Most of the acting is of fairly high quality and Mary Brian and Russell Hopton in particular do fine jobs with their roles. And the resolution was relatively novel and bittersweet, rather than being trite and saccharine as one might have expected.