SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

DigitalRevenantX7 Shortly before the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Axel Bomasch, a weapons engineer working on an improved form of armour plating, discovers that he is on the Nazis' hit list for capture so that his invention can be used on German tanks. He prepares to leave the country with his daughter Anna but his timing of critically off to the point that he just barely escapes just when the Nazis manage to invade. Anna, unfortunately, is arrested before she even leaves the house. Anna languishes in a concentration camp until she meets another prisoner, a former teacher named Karl Morsen who decides to help her escape & flee to England where her father has set up shop. But what Anna doesn't know is that Morsen is actually a Nazi spy tasked with capturing Axel, using Anna as bait. Once the pair reach England, he puts his plan into action & succeeds in abducting Anna & her father, taking them to Germany by submarine. The British, determined to rectify this, send their best man, Gus Bennett, a British secret agent who has been undercover as a war songs musician. Bennett arrives in Germany, pretending to be a German army colonel, & makes it onto the train that is carrying the Bomasch family to Munich. Meeting up with Anna & her father, Bennett fools the Germans into thinking that he was Anna's former lover & that he will convince them to stay & help the Nazis. But Morsen, also on the train, suspects otherwise. It is only through the help of two of Bennett's old friends, a pair of British tourists, who overhear Morsen's plans that Bennett is able to achieve his objective.This World War II-era spy thriller is an interesting film for film buffs. Despite its datedness & slow pace, the film is a reasonable spy thriller with dashes of comedy & even an exciting climax where Rex Harrison & his friends make a daring escape from the Nazis.Night Train to Munich was made shortly after the War began & takes place on the night it eventuated. Of course, there is no mention to the most infamous brutality of the Nazi regime, probably because at this point in time the Nazis' program of genocide was still being formulated, although the state of fear that they created in their territory was common knowledge. The film also shows some elements of Nazi brutality in their state, such as prisoners being beaten & teachers jailed for not forcing their students to teach German, as well as a worker being interrogated for accidentally making an off-hand remark about the Nazi regime.For acting, Rex Harrison makes an excellent prototype James Bond, the My Fair Lady star proving to be a remarkably good secret agent who is able to fool the Nazis & achieve his objectives, rescuing the victims from their Nazi oppressors.

paulccarroll3 I won't dwell on the plot points,as many have already. This film is very enjoyable,despite the unlikely jumps in plot, due mainly to the actors likability. This story originally came from a serialized novel by Gordon Wellesley,and screen written by the writers of Hitchcocks' "The Lady Vanishes". Thus the similarities,including characters Charters and Caldicott. When this film ends Paul Henreid,as the villain,isn't killed,and Rex Harrison as the hero looks back as He escapes the Nazis' clutches. It seemed that these two were bound to meet again,maybe in several films,as attractive, competent adversaries. But it seems that they didn't,and that's too bad.

st-shot Before Carol Reed perfected his directorial chops with a streak of classics after the war he made this mildly suspenseful and a touch improbable thriller with a patriotic message. It doesn't have the style, precision editing, or Robert Krasker lensing but Rex Harrisson and Paul Henreid duel well as adversaries with enough tension filled moments to keep things interesting.After escaping to England from Prague with his daughter (Margaret Lockwood) Dr. Bauman is lured back to Germany and into the hands of the Gestapo. British secret service agent Gus Bennet ( Harrison) is dispatched to pose as a senior officer and somehow get them back. Claiming that he and the daughter were once old flames he convinces SS members to let him try and seduce her over to their side. The premise is a bit of a stretch but Harrison looks impressive in a Nazi uniform and Henreid's ambiguous Gestapo officer is a formidable foe as he matches wits with Harrison in the tight claustrophobic confines of the Munich bound train in which Reed not only builds suspense but makes a clarion call to all Brits and free nation to do their part in defeating Nazism.

Turfseer The best part of 'Night Train to Munich' is the inciting incident which leads to the Act 2 machinations involving Rex Harrison's Dickie Randall, the naval officer masquerading as music hall entertainer, Gus Bennett. Czech scientist and armor-plating expert, Axel Bomasch. is whisked away to England, right before the Nazis march in, but his daughter Anna (Margaret Lockwood) is left behind and ends up in a concentration camp. She befriends Paul Marsen, who at first appears to be a Czech political prisoner (played by Paul Henreid, famous for his Viktor Laszlo role in 'Casablanca'). Naïve Anna doesn't realize that the escape from the concentration cap is manufactured and that Marsen is actually a member of the Gestapo.Somehow, Randall and his fellow intelligence operatives, can't seem to figure out that the Germans have already deduced the location of Bomasch or the fact that Marsen is a double agent. Instead of killing Bomasch, the Germans merely knock him out and whisk Axel and Anna back to Germany in a U-boat. Wouldn't you know it but Randall's superiors have no objections to allowing him to go to Germany and try and save the kidnapped Czechs. Since he's spent three years in Germany, he supposedly can speak the language and pretend that he's a high level Army Engineer. Incredibly, he easily gains access to Anna and her father after producing forged paperwork which is not closely examined by the bumbling Germans. Randall pretends that he formerly was involved with Anna and convinces the Germans (including the skeptical Gestapo double agent) that he might be able to convince Anna to help change her father's mind about the Nazis. A wrench is thrown into Randall's plan to spirit Anna and her father out of Germany when he learns that the Nazis have gotten orders from headquarters to immediately bring the Czechs to Munich.While on the train, we're introduced to the same self-involved Englishmen, Charters and Caldicott, who also appeared as the same characters in Hitchcock's 'The Lady Vanishes'. Charters blows Randall's cover when he asks Randall if he's the same person who he knew as an undergraduate at Oxford. According to one sagacious internet poster, Charters and Caldicott are not dolts but rather represent those Englishmen who chose to remain ignorant about the goings-on in Europe prior to the outbreak of the war. That's why the most important thing to Caldicott about "Mein Kampf" is that it's used as a marital aid by German women. It's only after a German soldier orders Charters and Calidcott to grovel before them, that they become galvanized and decide to 'join the cause' and help Randall.I'm unable to speak very highly about the climax of 'Night Train to Munich'. How is Randall able to subdue Henreid's Gestapo man without making any noise inside the train cabin? And how do Charters and Caldicott subdue two German soldiers and bring them back to the same cabin without being noticed? How do they so easily remove the solders' uniforms and put them on, also without making any noise? And what about the long car ride from Munich to Switzerland? Did you ever hear the word, 'roadblock'? During the shootout from the cable car, Rex Harrison seems to fire about 30 bullets when it appears he's carrying a gun that probably can fire only six cartridges. Finally, our Gestapo guy doesn't seem that badly wounded which would prevent him from dragging himself up to the cable controls and stopping the cable car from reaching the other side.You can catch 'Night Train' in a newly restored version from the Criterion Collection. The only extra is commentary from so-called film scholars Peter Evans and Bruce Babington. Unfortunately, Evans and Babington fail to make even one critical point regarding this film as they regard it as some kind of masterpiece. Given its slew of implausibilities, a masterpiece it is not.The film was very highly regarded in the US when it was released here in 1940. For its time, it was a highly effective piece of propaganda which helped convince Americans that Britain's war against Germany was just. The English, with their laid back "business as usual" attitude is nicely contrasted with the unscrupulous and menacing behavior of both the German Army/security apparatus and bureaucracy. A great deal of credit must be given to Paul Henreid as the sinister Gestapo agent. Unlike some of the other German/Nazi characters in the film, he's actually quite scary (as he should be). From a modern sensibility, Rex Harrison's casual acting demeanor coupled with the absolute ease in which his character outwits his opponents, relegates 'Night Train to Munich' to the realm of the 'B' picture. But as a piece of World War II history, 'Night Train' is well worth viewing at least once.