Night Train to Munich

A fabulous spy film boasting top draw scripting and supreme direction. Carol Reed is a truly wonderful director, his CV boasts the likes of The Third Man, Oliver and Odd Man Out, all great films for sure, which only makes it more infuriating that a gem like Night Train To Munich is incredibly hard to get hold of. I have only managed to catch it myself because of the unearthing of VHS tapes long thought to have been lost years ago, and it's just like finding hidden treasure I can tell you! Based on a story by Gordon Wellesley, and scripted by the adroitly talented teaming of Sydney Gilliat and Frank Launder, Night Train To Munich is a lesson in how to not over blow your subject, all the sequences flow without boring the viewer, with Reed astutely approaching the material with subtlety instead of blunderbuss bluster. Another highlight of the movie to me is that it could have so easily been a propaganda bore, the Germans being the devil incarnate, but here it feels that an equality of characterisations was the order of the day - something that many other genre pieces lost sight of further down the line. Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood and Paul Henreid are all excellent here, whilst wonderful comedic relief comes courtesy of Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford's English cricketers (fans of The Lady Vanishes will identify right away). Although this picture is script driven above all else, the action sequences are a joy to behold, with the final third of the picture an unadulterated pleasure, spies and stooges, plants and treachery, oh it's all here folks, enjoy, if you can get a good print of it that is! 9/10

There are shades of the "Lady Vanishes" in Carol Reed's intriguing tale of a complex mission to re-rescue a top Czech scientist from the Nazis. Having already been safely in Britain, he was kidnapped from under the very noses of British intelligence and so now they have to devise a plan to get him back. Rex Harrison - who has at least three identities in this thriller is charged with leading the attempt; aided by the scientist's daughter - Margaret Lockwood, and pursued by the duplicitous Paul Henreid as "Marsen". The adventure element is nothing particularly different, indeed I constantly expected Harrison to break into his King Mongkut impression - he made for a very unconvincing Nazi. The real stars, for me, were Messrs. Radford and Wayne as "Charters & Caldicott". Given much more on-screen time than usual they exemplified, I thought by humour and crass ineptitude, much of the mindset of the British establishment in the run up to the Nazi invasions of the late 1930s that probably only Churchill had the foresight to anticipate. To be honest, there's very little suspense in this film - but it is a good team effort with some delightful Haydn accompaniment.

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John Chard

CinemaSerf