Customer Reviews

Berlin Express [VHS]

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Berlin Express was the first post war American movie to be shot on location in defeated Germany and the evocative location shots of bombed out townscapes and the depiction of a nation so economically and spiritually depressed that cigarettes are its chief currency and the spirit of resentment towards its conquerors still burns brightly are the most striking aspects of the picture.
The plot revolves around the attempts of dissident Germans,unwilling to accept the reality of their crushing defeat in World War two ,to foil the plans of a prominent politician to press ahead with unification plans and greater co-operation with the occupying Allied powers
Out to stop them are some of his travelling companions on the eponymous train--his secretary(Merle Oberon) an American nutritionist,an English teacher ,a Soviet military man and an individual whose nationality remains elusive(Charles Corvin)
The tale takes them to low cabarets and abandoned warehouses ,coming to a climax back on ther train with one of their number turning out to be a traitor

Strong performances by Ryan as the nutritionist and Walter Slezak as the politician keep things rolling along and some atmospheric direction by the under-rated Jacques Tourneur help sustain interest

The tension between the occupying powers and the mutual suspicion between the Soviets and the Western powers is put over succintly and well

The movie is over-relaint on voiceovers and has dated but still has interest.The Internet Movie Database puts this in its bottom 10 film noir list which is silly
Its neither that bad nor is it a film noir,but rather is a neat thriller with an optimistic ending and a belief in progress and the possibility of peace between nations It might be naive but it isn't noir

This is one of my favorite movies of the post WWII era, as it gives viewers today a taste of life and mood in occupied Germany, as well as a very good, gripping story. A mystery unveiled toward the end probably will surprise most of its audience. The movie has plenty of shadow and light, good direction by the younger Tourneur, and reminded me a little of Hitchcock's 39 STEPS. I recommend it to those who haven't seen it, or have not done so recently.

A real eye opener. As you watch this film, think of all you've heard about the German blitz on London, and then realize as you see bombed-out Frankfurt and the countryside on the way to Berlin on the train, that whereas the Brits took around 30-40,000 civilian casualties from German air operations over England, the Germans sustained anywhere from 400 to 500,000 civilian casualties from combined Anglo-American air attacks. And this movie has the footage to show what 12 to 1 payback looked like. Sobering.
Good feel for the social atmosphere in Germany at the time, before the post-war Marshall Plan and the German Miracle kicked in. With most modern viewers ignorance of the savagery that the Russian Army, mostly conscripted from the Asiatic SSR's by the end of the war, perpetrated on the East Germans filtering back west, that knowledge lends a dimension to the characters' actions and motivations in the film that many people miss, and might describe as "talky" or bland. They just don't understand the subtext behind what they are seeing and hearing.
A Cold War must-see film, especially for those truly interested in history.
And what I want to know is... how come the I.G. Farben building wasn't bombed to smithereens in two years of saturation day and night bombing?
Did we have a few hundred agents in there feeding us back info??? It had better be something like that... that important.

Probably more interesting if you have actually been to or worked in Frankfurt. Unusual as you actually get to see inside Supreme Allied HQ, later V Corps HQ in Frankfurt now part of the University of Frankfurt (the former IG Farben Headquarters, where, among other things, Cyklon B poison gas used in the concentration camps was developed). Not particularly a bad film, but there are better.

This is an incredibly boring film, with lots of meaningless talk and talk. However, there are nice outdoor shots of Frankfurt in 1948, with all the post-war rubble all around. There were other films with scenes of Germany during this post-war period. One that comes to mind is Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair"; which is more interesting than this bland film, even though it is not one of Wilder's best. Another great film of this type is "The Third Man", but that has scenes of Vienna, not Germany.