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In between his time with Paramount and MGM, William Powell did a two year stint at Warner Brothers where I don't think Jack and his brothers ever quite knew what to do with him. His films there, vary in quality, but the best of them is this doomed romance with Kay Francis, One Way Passage. The title itself tells how poignant this film will be.

Powell is a fugitive who is tracked down and brought aboard ship in handcuffs by San Francisco Detective Warren Hymer. Powell escaped while being transported to San Quentin to be hung for murder. At the same time good time party girl Kay Francis is traveling home essentially to die. Unsaid at the time because the audience knew what the effects of bootleg liquor were on some people from the Roaring Twenties. Her organs are generally failing and she's coming home to die.

These two people are as poignant a pair of lovers as has ever been brought to the screen. Neither knows about the other and the aura of heartbreak just permeates One Way Passage. It's a cosmic joke played on them, both finding in each other a reason to live and both knowing it can't be.

Warren Hymer plays it a great deal straighter than he normally does. He's not the brightest cop in the world, but he's a far from the dim witted hooligans he usually is cast. Aline McMahon and Frank McHugh are a pair of confidence workers who both team up to help the doomed Powell and Francis. McHugh repeated his own role in the remake of One Way Passage from 1940, Till We Meet Again.

The most cynical heart will melt in seeing One Way Passage.

Kay Francis and William Powell are doomed lovers in "One Way Passage," a 1932 film also starring Frank McHugh, Aline McMahan and Warren Hymer.

Right after meeting the lovely Joan Ames in a bar, escaped murderer Dan Hardesty is caught by Sgt. Steve Burke and brought back to San Francisco via ship to be hanged. Ames is also on board ship; she's dying of an incurable illness (probably some form of heart disease they couldn't do anything about in 1932).

Knowing the sergeant can't swim, Hardesty, handcuffed to him, jumps overboard and, while trying to drown Burke, steals the handcuff key and frees himself. When Burke yells for help, it draws attention from passengers, and Hardesty has no choice but to save him.

To thank him for saving his life, Burke lets Hardesty walk around the ship with no handcuffs. Thus, when he and Joan meet again, she has no idea he's headed for a death sentence, and he doesn't know about her.

I saw Carol Burnett do a send-up of either this or the remake - just think if Burnett were on TV today, no one would have any idea what she was doing. How times have changed.

This is a beautiful film with wonderful performances, not only from Powell and Francis, but from Frank McHugh, Aline McMahon, and Warren Hymer. McHugh is a petty crook who runs into McMahon, another crook who is posing as a countess. She catches the eye of Sgt. Burke. It's a great subplot with some fun moments.

Powell is gallant, melancholy, and charming, and Francis is glamorous and lovely; both give very touching and sweet performances, each knowing he/she isn't going to live.

Each time they drink together, they break their glasses and cross the stems, and this crossing is something the camera focuses on as they sit in a cove in Hawaii and toss away their cigarettes. The ending is one of the best ever and will make the viewer smile and cry at the same time.

It's 1932, so some of the sound seems to have been done in an echo chamber, but that shouldn't bother anyone. "One Way Passage" is a treasure of a film.

I recently saw this movie on television and loved it. It is a beautiful love story, simply told. Kay Francis and William Powell are the doomed lovers and the Warner Brothers stock company provides excellent support. The contributions here by Aline MacMahon, Frank McHugh and Warren Hymer are especially worth noting. The cinematography shimmers. It's a four hanky tearjerker like they don't make anymore. I agree with the previous post, it's dreamlike perfection and the last scene is one for the books.

A dying woman and a condemned man fall in love on an ocean liner; how's that for high concept, circa 1932. No, I'm not giving anything away about this tightly plotted, exquisitely produced melodrama. Upper class sophistication, personified by ever-glamorous Kay Francis and gentleman crook William Powell, characterizes the tragic aspect of the story, while ethic warmth and humor, in the classic Warner Bros. style, are perfectly supplied by Aline MacMahon, Warren Hymer, and Frank McHugh. Lots of marvelous small touches, not the least being the way McHugh plays the final scene. If it's on, don't miss it.

It's love at first sight for Dan Hardesty (William Powell) and Joan Ames (Kay Francis) as they bump into each other at a Hong Kong bar. Police detective Steve Burke catches up to Dan and takes him into custody. They are taking the boat to San Francisco. Dan pulls them both overboard but rescues the drowning detective. They joined by Joan, drunken petty thief Skippy, and con artist Betty who is pretending to be a countess. Joan doesn't know that Dan faces a death sentence and he doesn't know that she's terminally ill.

The only thing holding this back from unreserved love is why Steve is after Dan. It needs an opening of what happened in the original incident to exonerate him in the audience's eyes. The fact that he saved the detective from drowning already points to his goodness. It would be better to have something more definitive. Skippy's little scams are loads of fun. He's great comic relief. Powell is charming as heck. This is a fine rom-com with a dark edge.

In the grim year of 1932, with Warner Bros. losing money like all the major studios except MGM (RKO and Paramount both went into receivership thanks to the Depression), along comes the movie One Way Passage, dealing with what seems are the petty cares of grifters on a Pacific cruise. Only this movie is not a screwball comedy or a story about rich people in tuxedos chitchatting when they are not dancing. Writer Robert Lord's frequent writing partner in 1932 and 1933, Wilson Mizner, specialized in stories about people on the margins of society, peaking with the great Heroes For Sale. In one way or another, most of the characters in One Way Passage are nearing the end of their line. When Frank McHugh's character Skippy drinks alone at a bar in Agua Caliente on New Year's Eve, there is no longer the usual smile on his face as he stares at his drink. The opening credits of the movie put Kay Francis' name above the title, but she is just one of several Warners stock company actors at their peak in this movie, including Warren Hymer as the tough detective who always gets his man.

The year 1939 is described as Hollywood's peak year, when movies like Gone With The Wind and Gunga Din were in release. But judging movies by how they stand the test of time, movies released in 1932 and 1933 stand up better. One Way Passage is proof of that. Warner Bros. may have treated its employees like slaves, working stars and crew until 2:00 AM (with no overtime) to meet the 12 day production time limit the studio imposed on most movies, with a 6 day work week, but look at the results. One Way Passage. Baby Face. Mystery of the Wax Museum. Lady Killer. Joan Blondell described Warners Bros. studio then as a place where things were "really cooking." And now, almost 75 years later, One Way Passage can still hold a viewer's attention with its story of some passengers on a last voyage before everything changes.

Is anyone in the mood for one of the saddest premises in old movie romances? That's saying quite a lot, but it's really true of One Way Passage and its remake 'Til We Meet Again. On a cruise ship, a condemned man on his way to death row and a woman with a terminal illness fall in love.

Are you reaching for your Kleenexes yet? You'll need an entire box for this movie, trust me. It's so incredibly sad, and it has one of the rare plots that isn't dated. It could easily have been remade every twenty years and audiences would still flock to it. A modern audience would obviously require more sex scenes, but there's enough allusion in the black-and-white versions to get the point across. William Powell, normally classy and debonair, gets a new persona as the rugged convict. He's not getting the death penalty for tax evasion, after all. Kay Francis, one of the most famous heroines of the 1930s, gets another tearjerker role as a woman whose strength might fade before she's had a chance to really live. You've been warned; bring your Kleenexes. I don't think it matters which movie you watch first, but you can pick based on the cast. The remake stars Merle Oberon and George Brent.

This is likely the most underrated great romance picture of all time! The stars--William Powell and Kay Francis--are superb. The supporting players--Aline MacMahon, Franck McHugh, and Pat O'Brien--have never been better. The music score is a classic; the story a perfect gem. From the opening shot at a Far East bar, complete with a marvelous singing trio, to the final, heartbreaking moment, this film is the perfect 1930s concoction of great stars and a ridiculously silly plot made totally believable and palatable. Kay Francis was one of the top stars of the decade, and this is one of her best films; William Powell, also underrated, has never been more suave. Both deserved Oscar nominations for this great fiolm, as did MacMahon and McHugh for support (not a category for another few years). Kay Francis did everything during her reign as a top Warners star. It's amazing how she was able to go from fragile heroine to hard-edged woman and then throw in a comedy. A truly versatile and wonderful star rescued by TCM from obscurity. Sadly, neither Powell nor Francis would ever win an Oscar----Julia Roberts indeed!

This delicate shipboard romance was a popular favorite in its time and it's not hard to see why. Robert Lord grabbed a well-earned Oscar for his original story, a fanciful but ingenious doomed lovers yarn that must have offered solace to Depression-era audiences whose miseries could only pale next to those of hard-luck leads William Powell and Kay Francis.

The elegant pair fall in love on a Frisco-bound ocean liner, each harboring a terrible secret that curtails their future happiness -- he's a convicted murderer returning to the gallows, she has a heart ailment and is living on borrowed time. Never mind why a dying woman is aboard a cruise ship instead of being ensconced in a terminal ward. Or why the authorities would send thick-witted Warren Hymer of all cops to bring in Powell.

This is irresistible hoke, and the director Tay Garnet invests it with wonderfully eccentric touches (like the burly lesbian among the trio of portly harmonizers in a Hong Kong bar) and innovative dream-like imagery (i.e., the startling camera zoom when Powell spots Francis at the ship's railing). He also manages the near-impossible feat of keeping Francis, the lisping clotheshorse, to a minimum of cloying eye-rolls, with no small help from Powell's wry and charmingly self-effacing performance.

The heavy sentiment is deftly balanced by the sparkling deadpan humor of Aline MacMahon as the Russian Countess Barrelhaus (in actuality the Brooklyn con-artist, Barrel House Betty), who conspires with perpetual drunk Frank McHugh (his grating presence is the film's sole detriment) to assist the lovers.

The coda, set in a Mexican bar on New Year's Eve, is unforgettable.

Overly schmaltzy, but works, just.

A ship bound to San Francisco from Hong Kong has some interesting passengers. One of them is a convicted criminal, being escorted back to California by a policeman. Another is a sickly heiress. The criminal and the heiress meet and fall in love. Cue romance, and a tough choice...

It's the intrigue that makes this story watchable. The romance is of your usual conventional soppy variety, so really nothing to write about there, except that it does influence the criminal's actions (adversely, I might add).

Decent performances by William Powell and Kay Francis in the lead roles. The policeman, played by Warren Hymer, is quite one- dimensional, however. Even worse is Frank McHugh as the drunk: very hammy and irritating. He does provide the best scene of the movie, however. The mirror scene was Chaplinesque in its hilarity.

The only reason I'm reviewing this film is because I find its score hard to swallow. There is nothing here that merits such a high one and I'm a fan of both Kay Francis and William Powell. They have given much better performances elsewhere. "Jewel Robbery" for instance, where they both appear, is much more fun and considerably more realistic. Here everything seems forced. They are good but they lack chemistry. And the supporting cast also doesn't click. Aline McMahon is hard to take as an adventuress on the hunt for a sugar daddy who falls for the dumb cop played by Wayne Hymer whose character is totally lacking in any social graces. You're left wondering why on earth she would be attracted to this bozo. And then there's Frank McHugh who plays a drunk throughout the movie and managed to just annoy me. So there you have it. On a positive note the film begins auspiciously with the bar scene where our protagonists first meet. There is a marvelous little vignette of the a capella trio as they struggle to catch the gratuities tossed to them by customers. It's fun as is the actual meeting scene of Francis and Powell but after that auspicious beginning the film deteriorates rapidly.

This is an update of an earlier comment. One Way Passage is likely the most underrated romance picture of all time! The stars--William Powell and Kay Francis--are superb. The supporting players--Aline MacMahon, Frank McHugh, and Warren Hymer--have never been better. The music score is a classic; the story a perfect gem. Francis is dying from a rare malady; Powell is going home to face execution. They meet and fall in love.

From the opening shot at a Far East bar, complete with a marvelous singing trio (Jane Jones is one of the singers), to the final, heartbreaking moment, this film is the perfect 1930s concoction of great stars and a ridiculously silly plot made totally believable and palatable. Kay Francis was one of the top stars of the decade, and this is one of her best films; William Powell, always underrated, has never been more suave. Both deserved Oscar nominations for this great film, as did MacMahon and McHugh for support (not a category for another few years).

Kay Francis did everything during her reign as a top star. It's amazing how she was able to go from fragile heroine to hard-edged woman and then throw in a comedy. A truly versatile and wonderful star rescued by TCM from obscurity. William Powell would hit his stride a few years after this film in The Thin Man. He started out in silent films as a villain (When Knighthood Was in Flower in 1922) but talkies turned him into the epitome of the debonair gent.

Two great stars, but neither Powell nor Francis would ever win an Oscar.

William Powell and Kay Francis meet in a Hong Kong bar and fall instantly in love over cocktails. They say auf wiedersehen, and meet again on the ship back to San Francisco. He doesn't know she is dying, and dying fast. She doesn't know he's been grabbed by cop Warren Hymer, and is going to be hanged at San Quentin as soon as he gets off the boat.

It's so intensely, romantically heartbreaking that my usual reaction would be to roll my eyes, but in the hands of director Tay Garnett, it simply overwhelms me. Cinematographer Robert Kurrie's lighting is made for Miss Francis, and William Powell's simple, declaratory line readings give the dialogue, which never gets flowery, a passion too intense to bear unmoved.

Among the supporting players, Aline MacMahon as a confidence woman who falls for Hymer, stands out; she never met a script or cast she could not steal. What's remarkable is the way their interaction humanizes Hymer, in one of his roles that looks like one of his standard, ridiculous mugs. The bartenders that feed them cocktails and witness their passion -- Glen Cavender, Mike Donlin, Roscoe Karns, and William Halligan -- offer visual comments, as do the trail of discarded cigarettes and broken cocktail glasses, each lying in broken, satiated pairs.

As I said, I want to roll my eyes. I can't. It doesn't make me weep either. It makes me sad that I've never felt anything that intense. My fault.

A shipboard tale of doomed lovers, ONE WAY PASSAGE manages to be interesting despite the shaky premise that lovers can meet, fall in love instantly and all the while harboring deep secrets that neither one is willing to reveal. It makes for great cinema if done properly and this version of the weepy tale almost succeeds.

The biggest drawback is the need to have comedy relief in the form of FRANK McHUGH, who overplays his role as a drunken thief in cohorts with a confidence woman, ALINE MacMAHON. While MacMahone manages to make her fake Countess a believable enough character, McHugh overplays his sing-song laugh and drunken bits of humor so outrageously that the story falls apart whenever he gets extensive footage.

If the tale had been confined to Miss Francis and Powell, director Tay Garnett would have gotten better results. He manages the direction very well, especially for that neat little ending which gives the story the sort of lift you'd never expect.

Kay Francis is assured and lovely as the doomed woman enroute to a sanitarium and William Powell is debonair as the man who takes one glance at her and falls deeply in love, but is on his way to San Quentin on a murder charge. WARREN HYMER, as a dumb cop, is another example of the film's penchant for weak comedy relief.

All it lacks is a heavy use of violins on the soundtrack to glorify the romance--but it manages to be "an affair to remember," 1930s style, despite some weaknesses.

A condemned man (William Powell) is being conducted to his execution in a month long (!) trans-Pacific voyage with a dying woman (Kay Francis), each keeping their secret from the other: a tragic situation, too frequently interrupted by faux comic relief (Frank McHugh). Especially during the Great Depression, audiences must have longed for a happy ending. This might be a perfect half of a double feature with "Outward Bound," about a ghost ship, whose passengers all knew exactly where they were going.

When I worked a graveyard shift, my supervisor, brightening (and waking) us up, asked "Quick! What are your top 5 favorite movies?" I instantly put "One Way Passage" on my list. I wasn't surprised when it wasn't on anyone else's list, this is an obscure gem.

The balance of melodrama and comedy is perfect; as it is in many thirties Warner Bros. dramas. It seems strange at first, but think it through. (For example, my ux Tom posits that Warners's unusual lug-n-mug filled western, "The Oklahoma Kid" is probably accurate, as most of the folks in the historical wild, woolly west moved from the wild East and could have talked like Cagney.)

The McHugh and MacMahon sub-plots are are not just comic relief from the romance, they are deftly integrated into it, and they become romantic co-conspirators. This adds to the appeal; the descriptions "chick flick," "weeper," "women's picture" can not apply.

The leads are sexy, gorgeous, and lovable. The crossed cigarettes tossed on the beach shows how the restraints on old movies resulted in delicious images. The crossed, broken cocktail glass image, at first seen quite early on in the movie, makes me question why IMDb Comments posters are saying this is movie has an unhappy ending (that's not a spoiler, is it?)

I haven't seen 'Love Affair (1939),' but I have seen 'An Affair to Remember (1957),' and that film undoubtedly owed something to Tay Garnett's 'One Way Passage (1932).' In McCarey's film, a trans-Atlantic liner becomes a metaphor for love: two people fall hopelessly for one another, becoming adrift on a vessel of passion that precludes all former relationships or future life plans. When the ship reaches its destination – New York – reality intrudes on emotion, and love is thrown into turmoil. In 'One Way Passage,' the reality is death itself. Joan (Kay Francis) has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and will be lucky to survive the journey to America. Dan (William Powell) has been convicted for murder, and in San Quentin awaits his gallows. Neither knows that the other is walking death row, either figuratively or literally, but love intercedes on their behalf: just as a star is brightest before its extinction, so too is love at its most passionate when the lovers' time is limited.

Despite its very brief running time (67 minutes), 'One Way Passage' is one of the great unsung romances. An aura of hope pervades the film. Though the viewer is always aware of the inevitable, I loathe to describe the story as a "doomed romance." Such a label would properly refer to, say, Lean's 'Brief Encounter (1945)' or Ophüls' 'Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948),' in which the prevailing mood is that of tragedy and misspent emotion. In 'One Way Passage,' not an ounce of passion goes to waste, each lover fully aware that their time together is brief. I was also struck by the notion that love doesn't necessarily entail complete openness between lovers. Lying, if done to protect rather than deceive, can be the most heartbreakingly romantic thing of all (I'm reminded of the devoted father in 'A Night to Remember (1958)' who, with admirable composure, assures his family that the Titanic will not sink, despite knowing that his own death is unavoidable). Garnett's casual use of long takes in masterful, giving the story a poetic fluidity without drawing attention to itself.

William Powell was one of the busiest stars of the 1930s, enjoying the security of, not one, but two recurring characters (Philo Vance and Nick Charles, both detectives). 'One Way Passage' was produced by Warner Brothers before he moved to M-G-M in 1934. Even before 'The Thin Man (1934),' however, Powell was one of the classiest stars in Hollywood, here delivering his dialogue with unsurpassed aplomb. Kay Francis was a new face for me, but her eyes simply sparkle with life and emotion, her character torn between the joys of love and the heartbreak of impending death. Of the supporting players, only Frank McHugh – as a drunken pickpocket with a weaselly cackle – destroyed the mood of the film, his alcoholism far less amusing than Nick Charles' subsequent hankering for martinis. While Aline MacMahon and Warren Hymer are strong, 'One Way Passage' truly belongs to Powell and Francis, and to a love than persists long after its participants have moved on to other worlds.

From 1932, we have an early tragic romance starring William Powell & Kay Francis. Starting out in Hong Kong, Powell is a man on the run who's has been caught by a detective who decides to bring him home to San Francisco via boat. Once on the ride home, he meets Francis, a socialite who he falls in love with. What each don't know is that he's wanted for murder & she's in the final throes of a fatal disease. What follows in this 70 minute yarn is the give & take of whether each character will divulge the truth to each other & the supporting players (a pair of con artists) who help them meet up for their romantic trysts. Hamfisted by the early crutches of cinema of the time (the clunky set up & just shoot'em presentation), the actors & story are still well served leaving the audience w/a bit of suspense as to how the story will end.

(1932) One Way Passage ROMANCE/ DRAMA

Fugitive William Powell as Dan escaping to a Cruise Ocean Liner, and gets captured by one of the law enforcement sent to bring him back to San Francisco, USA and be tried. While their, he meets Kay Francis as Joan, who is supposed to be dying from something, and he sacrifices a few attempts of escaping for his affections to her! Won an Oscar for Best Writing for Original story. This film was remade again in 1939 called "Til We Meet Again" with Merle Oberon and George Brent reusing actor Frank McHugh again for comedy relief! Soap opera material that could've been better.