Over the weekend, a few of us were discussing carriage-related matters and someone came up with the thought that they'd once seen an old James Cagney movie which featured action inside a very old (ie wooden-bodied) Pullman sleeper.
Can anyone shed light upon this?
Cheers, Bob

I can't say I know about the film in question, but I can think of several films in which Pullman travel plays a prominent part. These include "Without Reservations" (1946), "The Tall Target" (1951, set in early 1861), and "Narrow Margin" (1952). I recommend them all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_Reservations

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039110/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tall_Target

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044105/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narrow_Margin

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1919/The-Narrow-Margin/

There is a possibility the movie could be one I haven't seen, "Yankee Doodle Dandy," a film biography of Broadway showman George M Cohan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Doodle_Dandy

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035575/

Any chance that last one rings a bell?

Thanks for those tips. I recall reading somewhere a while back that a Hollywood studio bought an old sleeper from Pullman and kept it till sometime in the 1940s, so perhaps the later films may not have the right car.
However, if one can rent all on amazon for only a few dollars, they might be worth watching.
Cheers, Bob

There were several different Pullman cars that were owned over the years by various studios. I am aware of these:

Warner Brothers had the wooden Pullman SHAHALA that was built in 1909 with 10 sections, one drawing room and one compartment. This car was sold to Warner Bros. in Dec 1931. Several sections had been removed to allow for camera equipment to be placed inside the car body. The car body lasted on the studio grounds until sometime in the 1960s. Apparently the body was available at that time, but there was not a preservation organization interested in it. The body was bulldozed; but, some components were obtained by Orange Empire.

20th Century Fox bought two early steel Pullmans toward the end of the Second World War. One was CORYDON a 7-compartment, 2-drawing room car built in November 1917 and sold to the studio in April 1944. The other was COMMANDANT a 10-section observation car built in December 1915 and sold to the studio in December 1944. These cars went through at least one private owner (who had ideas of making them into a restaurant) before being acquired by museums. CORYDON is at Orange Empire and COMMANDANT is at San Diego RR Museum.