Starring Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison and Paul Henreid (billed as Paul von Hernreid), NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (also known simply as NIGHT TRAIN) is an thrilling, topical WW2 thriller directed by Carol Reed.

Quick Plot Surmise: Lockwood is Anna Bomasch, a young Czech woman who escapes to England to join her father, a top Czech scientist, after Prague is seized by Nazi control. She is helped on her journey by a man she met in a concentration camp, Karl Marsen (Henreid). Anna, along with further help from British intelligence agent Harrison (masquerading as a song and dance man), rejoins her father yet is betrayed by Marsen, who is really a top Nazi official/spy. Anna and her father are then snatched back to Europe (Berlin) by the Nazis. It is up to Harrison, in the guise of a Nazi officer, to rescue the pair.

This early Carol Reed film displays the European setting, concern with greater political issues and shadowy black-and-white cinematography that would populate his later 40's masterpieces, ODD MAN OUT and THE THIRD MAN. Lockwood is the first in a line of dark-haired heroines, with Alida Valli and Kathleen Ryan following in her footsteps.

Henried gives a very memorable performance (in my opinion the film's best) as Marsen- this film would launch his Hollywood career. It is interesting to note that Henreid found stardom as a Gestapo agent- a role that would be dramatically reversed in his most famous character, the heroic Victor Laszlo, in CASABLANCA. Lockwood, the talented beauty of British cinema, does not have to stretch too many of her acting capabilities (and this girl had plenty) as Anna, yet she is a delightful, engaging presence and looks gorgeous. You'll fall in love with Lockwood in this one. Harrison, very early in his career, is charming, affable and occasionally roguish as the British intelligence officer, He is remarkably young and thin in this one, yet all the trademark Harrison qualities are there.

Reed's NIGHT TO TRAIN TO MUNICH is an obvious attempt at a Hitchcockian thriller, yet it is a very good attempt that succeeds on most fronts. Clearly indebted to Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES, much of Reed's work in NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH has been borrowed from the earlier film. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne return as the legendary cricket-buffs and occasional accidental-heroes Charters and Caldicott, who just manage to run into international intrigue on every train ride they embark on!

Launder and Gilliat's script (they also did the script for THE LADY VANISHES-hence Charters and Caldicott having another outing here)is an excellent one, with the writing for the most part fresh, clever and witty. The train premise is, of course, borrowed from THE LADY VANISHES (note for the very Hitchcock-like cutting between the reactions of Lockwood, Harrison and Henreid), as is a tense eating scene aboard the train and a sexy, lingerie clad Lockwood being visited by a suitor in her hotel room, yet NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH manages to be unique all on it's own. The reason? Europe was very much in War by 1940, unlike THE LADY VANISHES, which is set in 1938. It is tense and thrilling because the real-life situation at the time of the film's release WAS tense and thrilling.

I wonder how audiences would have received the film in it's day. Some scenes are actually still quite amazing in how far they go. The opening five minutes or so clearly uses stock footage, yet the rest is conceived just for the film. The sight of Charters attempting to read Hitler's tome Mein Kampf and remarking "It's not exactly Honeymoon material, is it?" and sagely quipping "I'm still in Hitler's boyhood" was probably quite daring back in the day. I also found a small moment with a Nazi officer quite memorable. When alone in a room (with his Fuhrer's picture facing toward him) he is heard to remark in a resigned, strangely sad voice "What a bloody awful country we live in".

Definitely see this film. It's a top little gem.

Night Train to Munich (1940)

This British movie was made in 1940 a year after German and Britain began WWII. It is set in the late summer of 1939, just as the declaration of war was on the horizon. And while the filming and post-production is going on, London is being bombed by the Nazi air force. (The film was released in December, several months after the first raids.)

The most memorable lead is Rex Harrison playing an agent and double agent, falling in love with and saving the scientist's daughter (Margaret Lockwood) as well as the scientist himself (while he's at it). And then as a competing suitor, the dubiously aligned German officer played by Paul Henreid, who a year later would play a kind of counterpoint in the American Nazi film, "Casablanca."

Director Carol Reed marshals all these forces and makes a surprisingly terrific movie. It's fast, smart, fanciful, and patriotic. It's also really really funny, and the more you catch the British humor the more you'll be glad--at times it's relentless even as its subtle. The little barbs against the Germans, both as German stereotypes and as Nazi buffoons, is highly calculated. The British come off as daring and dashing, even the bumbling travelers rise to the occasion. It's often been commented that Harrison makes a very fit precursor to James Bond, and there must be a backwards truth to that because Ian Fleming (who invented Bond) was a WWII British OSS worker. Art imitating life. Imitating art.

And yes, this is an homage and reference (if not sequel) to Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes," including use of the same writers, the same kind of comic suspense, the same leading actress, and even two comic side characters from one train to the other. Reed even acknowledged the connections, as if he could deny them, and wanted no doubt to coattail some of the movies huge success.

It taints a movie to call it propaganda, so I won't. It's not, really. What it does (just as "Casablanca" does) is strike one up for the good guys. You end the movie thinking the British might just win this thing. And at the time that wasn't a foregone conclusion--London was only sinking further into the terror of the Blitz. Of course, we know that British resolve and resourcefulness won the day, with a little outside help, and this is part of exactly that.

Great stuff.