Product Details

• Actors: Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid
• Directors: Carol Reed
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
• DVD Release Date: June 29, 2010
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003D3Y65G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,301 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Night Train to Munich (The Criterion Collection)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A certain breathless immediacy pulses through Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich, even if the movie conveys a puckish sense of fun. The immediacy probably stems from the topical subject matter: released in Britain in the summer of 1940, less than a year after the beginning of World War II, the film serves up still-fresh images of espionage, Hitler's SS, and concentration camps. The opening reels are packed with excitement: plucky Czech Margaret Lockwood hustles her scientist father (James Harcourt) out from under the Nazi thumb, only to fall to more skullduggery after emigrating to England. Rex Harrison plays her breezy British contact, first seen singing a jaunty tune as a song plugger (for anyone familiar with Harrison's later My Fair Lady vocalizing, his career here is highly amusing). The second half of the picture concentrates on a journey across Europe as the war is breaking out, and clearly aspires to (and frequently matches) the comic-suspenseful mode perfected in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, which also starred Lockwood. Both films were written by the crack team of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, who bring in that glorious cricket-loving combo from The Lady Vanishes, Charters and Caldicott. They are played again by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, who are just as funny here as they were in the earlier picture. Years before The Third Man and The Fallen Idol, Reed's direction navigates the tricky shifts between comedy, high adventure, and can-do wartime patriotism: see the splendid silent beat that follows the moment Charters and Caldicott hear that war has begun, broken by Charters's serious reflection that it will now be dashed difficult to get his golf clubs out of Europe. Superb. The Criterion release of Night Train to Munich includes a half-hour conversation between experts on the filmmakers--staged, fittingly, aboard an old train car. --Robert Horton

Product Description

A twisting, turning, cloak-and-dagger delight, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH is a gripping, occasionally comic confection from writers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat (Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes) and director Carol Reed (The Fallen Idol, The Third Man). Paced like an out-of-control locomotive, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH takes viewers on a World War IIera journey from Prague to England to the Swiss Alps, as Nazis pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter (Margaret Lockwood, of The Lady Vanishes), who are being aided by a debonair British undercover agent, played by Rex Harrison (Major Barbara, My Fair Lady). This captivating, long-overlooked adventure--which also features Casablanca's Paul Henreid --mixes comedy, romance, and thrills with enough skill and cleverness to give the master of suspense himself pause.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic WWII romantic adventure, with Rex Harrison impeccably confidant March 26, 2010

By C. O. DeRiemer TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

While this is one of Carol Reed's first-class movies, it also owes a lot to Alfred Hitchcock and The Lady Vanishes. It was written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, who also wrote Lady, and the co-star is Margaret Lockwood, who also starred in The Lady Vanishes. The movie is a wonderful WWII chase film, with excellent performances by Lockwood, Paul Henreid and, especially, Rex Harrison. The Criterion release is not due until mid-June, but I will assume Criterion's usual meticulous care. I've watched Night Train to Munich several times on an execrable VHS transfer and plan to purchase Criterion's treatment sight unseen. The movie is a delight of style, charm and adventure. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed.

Professor Bomasch, a Czech scientist who has discovered a new kind of armor, and his daughter, Anna (Lockwood), flee their country for Britain one step ahead of Nazi agents. The professor makes it but his daughter is captured and sent to a concentration camp. A fellow inmate, Karl Marsen (Henreid), befriends her and they manage to escape and make their way across the channel. Anna searches for her father and is directed to a seedy boardwalk song man, Gus Bennett (Harrison), who is in fact a British agent charged with protecting her father. A Nazi agent finds and kidnaps the professor and returns him to Berlin. He takes the daughter, too, and Gus goes after them. After many adventures, including Gus bluffing his way into Gestapo headquarters as a German officer, a danger-filled journey on the night train to Munich and a rousing escape on a tram line high in the Alps between Germany and Switzerland, Gus succeeds in rescuing Professor Bomasch and Anna and winning Anna's love.

For those who forged ahead and read this plot summary, believe me, your enjoyment of Night Train will not suffer a jot. The movie is so sophisticated, so quick, that it falls into The Lady Vanishes category: Knowing the plot just gives added anticipation to the next viewing.

This is a skilled, witty and suspenseful movie. Best of all is Rex Harrison. He's resourceful, skeptical, amusing and charming. He's deliberately second rate as a song plugger, and effortlessly first-rate as a leading man.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A botched opportunity for Criterion to do the definitive version July 9, 2010

By Robert Moore HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

I was looking forward to this new Criterion edition of Carol Reed's "remake" of Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES with enormous anticipation. I had long loved the film from having seen it in student film clubs while in grad school in New Haven and Chicago, but had been repulsed by the public domain editions that were the only way to acquire the film on either VHS or DVD. But with Criterion you always look forward not merely to a sterling restoration, but the bundle of wonderful special features that come with the film. A superb recent example is the recent Criterion edition of John Ford's STAGECOACH, which was filled to overflowing with commentaries and special features. But when I opened this, I was severely disappointed to see only a single special feature, two writers who discuss various aspects of the film. No commentary however, and no other additional features. The Criterion edition of THE LADY VANISHES, on the other hand, not only has a commentary and special video features, it also contains an entire film featuring Caldecott and Charters, the characters invented by writers Sidney Gilliatt and Frank Launder in THE LADY VANISHES. Needless to say, this edition of NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH, with its lack of features, was quite a disappointment.

Still, as I pointed out above, there were no good versions of this available on tape or disc, and this does feature a beautifully restored print. In truth, if it weren't for the fact that Criterion had set such ridiculously high standards with previous releases, there would be no complaints with this one.

The film is such an explicit imitation of THE LADY VANISHES that charges of plagiarism might be leveled, if it wasn't that it was so clearly respectful of what Hitchcock had achieved in that masterpiece. This film isn't quite as elegant or as brilliant as Hitchcock's film (in fact, a scene by scene comparison will reveal the difference between the exceptionally talented Reed and the genius Hitchcock), but it still is one of the most enduring films made during World War II. It features the same blend of intrigue and humor that Hitchcock's film contained. Gilliatt and Launder wrote the screenplay for both films. Both films starred Margaret Lockwood as well as Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters and Caldicot. Let me repeat the latter: it was not merely a case of the same actors appearing in both films, but they played precisely the same characters. This has close to no precedent in the history of film, one set of fictional characters shifting from one film to another. They did, of course, go on to appear in other movies together (one of which can be found in the Criterion edition of THE LADY VANISHES). And there are equivalent characters in both films, as well as a MacGuffin in each (the MacGuffin in NIGHT TRAIN being the scientific work of a Czech professor whose work will, when complete "revolutionize warfare" -- nevermind that the work is not explored in even generalities).

One way the Hitchcock film is superior is in the illusion of their being on a train. In THE LADY VANISHES Hitchcock worked complete magic in making the set simulate a moving train. He blended sound, light, and a staggering number of individual tricks to make the illusion come alive. In NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH the train set is, in comparison, comparatively static. Anyone doubting me can watch any two minutes of each film in the train scenes and note the difference. Apart from that, however, there is a fascinating similarity in the tricks used in each film, with each film blending models, miniatures, matte paintings, and studio sets. Although the Hitchcock film is clearly the better of the two, what is remarkable is just how good this "rip off" is. Few films meant to emulate a previous film have succeeded so completely as this one.

So while this lacks the special features that one would have liked, it nonetheless gives fans of the film at long last a superb print to watch at home.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Espionage Thriller June 14, 2010

By Michael B. Druxman

Format:DVD

At the start of World War II, Nazi agents pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter (Margaret Lockwood) in order to get his formula for superior military armaments. They are able to kidnap them back to Germany from their safe haven in England, but a British secret agent (Rex Harrison), masquerading as a high-ranking German officer, executes a daring plan to rescue the pair before the scientist's secrets are revealed.

Carol Reed directed this companion film to THE LADY VANISHES, which has a screenplay by the writers of that Hitchcock classic, Sidney Gillant and Frank Launder. The script has a couple of surprising plot twists, one of which occurs fairly early in the movie.

Rex Harrison, in his first major film role, and Margaret Lockwood are joined in the cast by Paul Henreid (billed as "Paul Von Hernried" here), Basil Radford and Naughton Wayne, the latter two repeating their delightful "very British" comic cricket aficionados from THE LADY VANISHES, Charters and Caldicott.

The main difference between this and the 1938 movie is that Hitchcock's picture is more of a mystery that begs to be solved (i.e. what happened to the old lady?) while Reed's film is, essentially, a chase melodrama. Even though NIGHT TRAIN identifies its villains as Nazis, which LADY didn't, neither film is meant to be taken too seriously.

Despite the fact that it employs carefully crafted models (as did THE LADY VANISHES), rather than CGI special effects, the movie remains an exciting, fast-paced espionage thriller that is the equal to today's over-produced movies of that genre.

I just wish that, during the final shoot-out with the Nazis, director Reed (or perhaps the film's editor) had thought to show Harrison reloading his revolver. I have no idea how many shots he fired, but it was certainly a lot more than six.

Aside from a very good written essay by Philip Kemp in booklet form, the only other extra in this release is 30-minute video conversation about the movie with film scholars Bruce Babington and Peter Evans.

© Michael B. Druxman