Customer Reviews

Night Train to Munich [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First, the bad news. I have seen two VHS versions of this superb film circulating, but both are of exceedingly low quality. I could be wrong, but I believe that at the moment there is not a first rate version of this film available in any format. We stand in great need of a fully restored DVD version of this film. The available VHS version looks scratched and poorly focused. It is still enjoyable, but one has the illusion of watching a bad print in the wee hours of the morning.

On one level, this film is a sort of remake of Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES. The parallels to the latter are especially strong, and not at all accidental. The screenplays for both THE LADY VANISHES and NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH were written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. Furthermore, Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford recreated their delightful characters Charters and Caldicott, two British twits who nearly stole the show in THE LADY VANISHES. Although they don't make quite the impact in this film that they did in THE LADY VANISHES, their presence nonetheless adds considerably to the film. The female protagonist is portrayed by Margaret Lockwood, who was also in the Hitchcock film. New to the Carol Reed film are an utterly delightful (as usual) Rex Harrison and Paul Henreid. Like THE LADY VANISHES, much of the film takes place on the European continent on a train, and the male hero in each film has a career that involves to some degree music.

NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH is not, however, as good as THE LADY VANISHES. The difference isn't in the cast and the script but in the directors. In a suspense film of this kind, Hitchcock would shame any competitor, and both his touch with suspense and with comedy (elements dominant in both films) exceeds that of the otherwise quite gifted Carol Reed. If the two films did not resemble each other so sharply, one would not feel compelled to compare the two.

Nonetheless, taken on its own terms, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH is a first rate film, and anyone watching it will have a thoroughly good time. While Hitchcock makes THE LADY VANISHES a better film, Rex Harrison brings a degree of charm and elegance that is unique. This film, in fact, affords Harrison with one of the better roles of his career. All in all, it is hard to imagine someone not having a great time watching this movie. This will be ever truer when someone provides a good, fresh, restored copy of the film on DVD.

Night Train to Munich is a hopelessly outdated yet watchable British 1940 flick made at the precipice of the commencement of World War 2. Rex Harrison plays a somewhat miscast British agent posing as a German major in an attempt to rescue Margaret Lockwood and her father a Czech industrialist from the clutches of the Nazis. The father played by James Harcourt is the inventor of a revolutionary form of armor plating that the Nazis are desperate to procure. Paul Henreid of Casablanca fame gives a notable performance as a treacherous Gestapo captain scheming to coerce the military secrets from the inventor.

The film possesses that hokey quality of those of that era, however Carol Reed was a talented director and tells the story well with a minimum of wartime propaganda.

The framing of the film is completely off. There is a black bar across the top of the screen indicating that when they transferred it to VHS, they didn't have it just right. It's extremely distracting.

The film itself is wonderful. Tense, exciting, interesting... I highly recommend you finding a different release and enjoying it.

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 Harrision.

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 (Harrision), who is in fact a British agent charged with protecting her father. Marsen, however, is a Nazi agent whose job is to find and kidnap the professor and return him to Berlin. This he does, taking 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 them and winning Anna's love.

This is a skilled, witty and suspensefull movie in the Hitchcock style. The dialogue is quick, Lockwood is a winning and brave heroine, Marsen is not a cardboard caricature, and the set pieces really work. The train ride is full of urgent moments and clever situations. The climax involving the trams is exciting.

Best of all is Rex Harrrison. He's resourceful, skeptical, amusing and charming. He's deliberately second rate as a song plugger, and effortlessly first-rate as a leading man. He might have been a selfish SOB in real life, but he was a magnetic actor.

This is another film which is not on DVD, and the VHS tape I have looks the movie's age. You'll need to be tolerant; the transfer is not too good. Still, its worth having.

Of course with Carol Reed as director I was hoping for a first rate film and I was not disappointed. Suspenseful, humorous, with a nice set of twists, this film left me feeling I had made a small find. Definitely recommended!

Having watched---and been quite enamored with Margaret Lockwood in "The Lady Vanishes" (3/4 of which takes place over rails), and having been impressed by that film's plot, dialogue, and direction I decided to board "The Night Train to Munich" so to speak, so as to continue the journey. Contrary to others herein, I cannot say that such was a wise decision on my part: First of all the quality of this film's recording is rather poor which doesn't help matters. Margaret Lockwood's role pales in comparison herein too; as this film is really one without a leading lady's role, notwithstanding Ms. Lockwood's talents. She was wonderful in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes," but here has just not been given enough material to work with. (It's interesting to think that while "The Lady Vanishes" title is not at all suggestive of being set aboard a train, "The Night Train to Munich" declaratively promotes this notion---notwithstanding the fact that little more than a fifth of it takes place aboard any moving conveyance!) Yes, Rex Harrison ably carries his own herein, as do Basil Radford & Nauton Wayne (reprising their Charters & Caldicott---captivated by cricket---characters), but such is not enough to carry this film into the station. Director Carol Reed (of "The Third Man" fame) just wasn't given a screenplay commensurate with the quality that those who wrote "The Lady Vanishes" provide for this film. If you are particularly devoted fans of Radford & Wayne, Harrison, and/or Lockwood you may be interested in seeing this film, but otherwise you'd be better off just watching "The Lady Vanishes" again---or "Strangers on a Train" if you want suspense along rails. There are hundreds of average to above-average films out there, so unless you've seen most of the the great ones already---and have seen the best foreign films too, you ought to take at pass at fare such as "The Night Train to Munich." Cheers!

I highly recommend this film. It is really good and well worth watching. Paul Henreid and Rex Harrison are great in it.

An enjoyable, antiquated spy thriller from the early days of World War Two. England was already at war with Germany when this came out 1940, although the action is set on the very day that England and France declared war, following the German invasion of Poland, in 1939. Carol Reed directs and Rex Harrison stars as a devil-may-care English agent who slips into Germany to rescue a Czech scientist and his attractive daughter from a jackbooted, ruthless Gestapo agent, played by Paul Henreid (of course!). The film mixes offbeat comedy with suspense, buoying British spirits by poking fun at German officiousness and rigidity. One notable feature of this film is the second appearance of the team of Basil Radford and Naughton Wayne as the plucky, train-riding upper-class twits, Charters & Caldicott -- the same roles they played in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes." The Charters & Caldicott duo appeared in several films, all with different directors, as sort of a cherished English cinema in-joke... They definitely add to the fun here!

The Lady Vanishes, almost embassingly so. First, Night Train to Munich, has Margaret Lockwood. Not bad. There are the two British sports twits abroad to inadvertantly aid & abet their countryman. Of course, the train ride which was mandatory. But the repeat of thoses bloody Czechs. Come on. But my mind flashes back to a successor of Night Train. That is, From Russia With Love. Sean Connery's James Bond is much like Rex Harrison's agent, Gus Bennett. They are both formally schooled, urbane & incredibly witty. This movie was made during World War II so unlike The Lady Vanishes the British didn't feel the need to appease the Nazis. The tape quality is not good. This movie deserves a dvd. A full length commentary with that would sell me.