Sleeping Car to Trieste

This is a remake of 1932's Rome Express, which is a far better film and stars the seedy and sinister Mr Dane Calthrop. This version is slow and plodding, and the humour is mainly heavy handed. There is an unnecessary subplot about an Englishman trying to explain English cookery to a French chef (I'm not going back to the Good Old Days - I remember that food).

Best things about this version are David Tomlinson as the old schoolfriend who turns up inappositely, and Hugh Burden as the put-upon secretary. The McGuffin is a diary containing secrets that might start a war with an unspecified country, rather than a stolen painting. The adulterous couple are sexless as only the English can be.

Jean Kent is always worth watching, but whoever designed her frumpy wardrobe should be condemned to selling long underwear in British Home Stores. That hat with the two horns - or are they ice cream cones? There is a subplot about two French girls who are smuggling model hats, and they are rather good, as is Bonar Colleano as a wisecracking American soldier. His wisecracks really are funny. His mate the birdwatcher is good, too.

But overall - it's as stodgy as an English suet pudding.

I believe this is a remake of the film Rome Express.

In the beginning of this film, we see Zerta (Albert Lieven), a foreign agent, steal something from the Paris Embassy. He then throws it out the window to the waiting Karl. Valya (Jean Kent) is also at the embassy and an accomplice. They are to meet Karl the next day, but he stands them up. Realizing he is going to sell whatever it is for more money, they take off attempting to find him.

They find out that he is on a train headed for Zagreb. That's when the fun begins. Karl is upset to find that he does not have his own berth, which he has to have in order to a) stay hidden; and b) hide what he stole.

There are a bunch of characters involved - a couple secretly committing adultery, a friend of the man part of the couple (David Tomlinson) who wants to play cards and drink; a wealthy snobbish man (Finlay Currie) and his harried assistant; a bird watcher who won't shut up; two French girls who take advantage of an American soldier to avoid customs; the chef, who has to listen to an amateur cook that won't shut up.

Eventually we learn that the object is a diary that, if published, could start another war. Karl finally manages to get a berth alone, only to be moved from it after he's hidden the diary. The adulterous man would like his girlfriend to come to his berth, but he's stuck with someone else unexpectedly in his berth.

Sooner or later, they all play their part in retrieval of the diary.

Entertaining post-war film, well-directed.

As an American, I am always interested to see how Americans are portrayed in European films, particularly films made prior to WWII and in the years immediately following it.

The American in this film is portrayed as a vulgar contrast to the more sophisticated Europeans on board the train. He is a boozing, whistling, skirt-chasing Italian-American GI with a New York accent. (Why are they always from New York?) He is contrasted with the British passengers in two notable ways: First, his passion for the fairer sex is more overt and he comes across as wolfish in his pursuit of the young women in the film. This is contrasted with the discrete way in which the adulterous British couple on board the train are conducting their affair. When the two young French woman spurn his attempts to have a drinking party with them in their sleeping compartment, one says to him "We no longer wish to be liberated!" or words to that effect. This is a revealing statement about how the American military presence in postwar Europe was wearing thin the patience of Europeans.

Second, the magazines this American GI reads are prominently displayed so as to ensure that the audience can see them. They are the standard popular American mediocrities of the day: Saturday Evening Post, Life Magazine, etc. This is contrasted with the more scholarly (albeit boring) readings of bird-watching Britisher sharing his compartment.

Overall, the American in this film is the stereotypical boorish American so common in European films of this era. His portrayal, however, is not worse than Hollywood's stereotypes of Europeans.

Please note that this is not a criticism, but rather an observation. Americans are not singled out for criticism; the film traffics in several stereotypes (the cheapness of Scotchmen, for example) and does so mainly in a vein of comedic irony. Even the British get their own send-ups in this film.

A combination of Allan MacKinnon's inspired adaptation, and good casting and direction add up to a rare example of a remake being as entertaining as the original. Albert Lieven as Zurta may lack the physical menace Conrad Veidt brought to the part, but his persona as a charming ruthless assassin is succinctly established within the first couple of minutes as he murders in cold blood prior to strolling nonchalantly away. Alan Wheatley was a sound choice as the double-crossing furtive character of Poole, in a role not dissimilar from the one he'd played in Brighton Rock shortly before. Gordon Harker's hearty golfing bore is replaced by two characters, David Tomlinson's well-meaning but thoroughly obtuse Bishop, and David Hutcheson's garrulous patronising Denning, ponderously lecturing the chef how to make 'Roly-Poly Pudding'. Paul Dupuis' Inspector Jolif is a big improvement on his counterpart in the original. The 'MacGuffin' of the politically explosive stolen diary is quite an advancement on the stolen painting in Rome Express, making a more convincing reason to warrant the involvement of the bullying McBain, as well as providing the establishing scene in the embassy, although the motivation of Jean Kent's enigmatic spy Valya is never really explained. Plenty of sly humour too all adds up to an entertaining ninety minutes or so.

Sleeping Car is a remake of the very good 1932 Rome Express with Conrad Veidt providing a much more sinister and intense Zurta in that one than Albert Lieven does in this remake - to his credit, though, Lieven does exude a debonair, charming sliminess, and I like both actors' widely different takes on the role.

Lieven is actually better suited to the role of Zurta than Veidt would have been, since the tone of Sleeping Car is lighter, despite the biting satire overall. Rome Express, while absorbing, is by comparison somewhat flat and humorless. The action and dialogue in both are crisp, fast-paced without being frenzied; the subplots in Sleeping Car are more entertaining.

Scottish actor Finlay Currie is in both. He's a fast-talking American show business promoter in Rome Express, and an overbearing author in the Trieste version. Urbane actor Paul Dupuis is more satisfying as the detective Jolif in Trieste. He has classier, funnier lines, and comes across as a three-dimensional sophisticate. In Rome Express, the role is a dull mish- mash attempted by Frank Vosper.

Not to be missed is the fun performance by always-watchable Jean Kent, in full control of her role.

Overall, Trieste corrects some of Rome's plot weaknesses, as well as adding life and humor, If you have a chance, watch both of them. They're both enjoyable.