Night Train to Munich

An intrepid British spy boards the NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH in a desperate attempt to rescue a scientist & his beautiful daughter from the Nazis.

Here is an excellent wartime thriller, with just the right amount of puckish humor to keep the film from becoming too heavy. Very fine acting & excellent production values add tremendously to the success of the film, with director Sir Carol Reed showing hints of the style which would distinguish his postwar crime classic, THE THIRD MAN, a decade hence.

Margaret Lockwood is lovely, but she is given remarkably little to do outside of looking anxious or scared. Not to worry, the action is carried admirably by the male side of the cast, most notably Sir Rex Harrison as the British agent. Whether glibly singing silly songs or engaged in deadly gun battles in the Bavarian Alps, he carries off his role with his characteristic aplomb.

Paul Henreid completes the quasi-romantic triangle. Menacing & sophisticated, he is an excellent example of Nazi determination & evil. Sir Felix Aylmer, very effectively playing against type, wraps his unique voice around the small part of a German spy master. Roland Culver, Torin Thatcher & Ian Fleming - the character actor, not the author - might be glimpsed in cameo roles.

Fans of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's splendid THE LADY VANISHES (1938) will be heartened at seeing the return of the characters Charters & Caldicott, those criquet-mad twits, played by the original actors, Basil Radford & Naughton Wayne. Their initial performances had proved so successful that they were given the opportunity to reprise the roles several times, this being the most successful of their reappearances. Their inclusion here, about two-thirds into the story, gives the film a decided lift, making the whole procedure jolly good entertainment.

Carol Reed's wonderful and interesting style of suspenseful film (seen in all its glory in 'The Third Man') is evident in this early spy flick. Rex Reed is an OSS operative who must journey deep into the heart of the Third Reich to rescue an important scientist before the Nazis can make full use of him. The characters are not just two-dimensional although they may seem that way; they use every trick and opportunity to get through their sticky situation. The sudden appearance of two of the characters from Hitchcock's 'The Lady Vanishes' is a real treat, too!

The story itself is very intricate, with crosses and double-crosses and random occurances causing problems in our hero's way. The film is successfully able to weave genius storytelling, great acting, and effective cinematography to make it an intriguing spy film that is surely ahead of its time! And the finale is certainly an indicator of what the James Bond films would bring us years later.

Even though it was filmed in the beginning of WWII, it is not a stereotypical, or dull, film. A must-see!

I disagree with the user who commented that these two fine characters are a couple of "English Dolts". English they most certainly are and that is the point. Dolts they are most certainly not. The writer uses them as comic relief and to parody the British Middle and Upper Class mentality that ignored Facisim in Europe for so long. Their preoccupation with cricket, tennis and golf is but a tool. Mistaking "Mein Kampf" for a marital aid is both a joke and a jab at English ignorance of matters concerning the Continent. One can almost here them make that classic comment attributed to another Englishman; "the Wogs begin at Calais." Their bumbling actions are an example of English self deprecating humor. I have enjoyed these two characters in a number of films and only wish they had appeared in more.

Rex Harrison plays against type to great effect in Sir Carol Reed's NIGHT TRAIN. the atmospere of the film is suitable foggy and dismal and the screenplay keeps you on edge. Harrison demonstrates a keen sense of underplay that until this point he never had a chance to play on screen. A film to be savored.

Carol Reed directs this thriller in the Hitchcock tradition. A Czech scientist(James Harcourt)and his daughter(Margaret Lockwood)are pursued by Nazis. The pair escape to England, but Lockwood is captured and placed in a concentration camp in hopes of influencing her father to cooperate with the Germans. The lovely Lockwood escapes to rejoin her father only to have the pair kidnapped and taken back to Germany. A British agent(Rex Harrison)in disguise as a German officer infiltrates the German high command and tries to get the couple out of Germany by way of a night train to Munich. Nazi faithful Paul Henreid does his best to spoil the escape. My favorite scene involves the cable-car in the Swiss Alps. Harrison is outstanding. Supporting cast includes: Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Roland Culver and Austin Trevor. The intelligent script is witty with room for a little deadpan humor.