NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (1940)

This British thriller is directed by Sir Carol Reed and distributed by 20th Century Fox, opening in America at the end of 1940. The screenplay was written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based briefly on a Gordon Wellesley short story. The film centers on the Nazis in occupied Prague prior to the Second World War. It stars Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison in a dual role, and Paul Henreid. Reprising their railway roles from The Lady Vanishes two years prior, are Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as the same characters, Caldicott and Charters—insatiable cricket fans. The film's comparison to the 1938 Hitchcock film, at nearly the same length, is rather obvious, though Lockwood plays a different character.

The ninety-five-minute film is full of sophisticated British suspense, starting with the kidnapping of Lockwood on her way to join her father, an invaluable industrial designer, for their escape by plane back to England. She befriends a fellow concentration camp prisoner, Henreid. This sets up the first of two twists in the film as they escape to England in darkness while a German officer cuts the power to the prison's searchlight. How convenient. After settling in, Henreid visits an optometrist who asks him to read an eye test chart. He reads the large letters wrong, twice, to confirm their Nazi contact code. They salute and poke each other in the eye.

Lockwood does not know the whereabouts of her father. She receives a call and is told where to meet her contact, Harrison, posing as a side-show vendor trying to sell his songwriting abilities by singing his tunes. With Harrison's introduction, the film not only improves but cranks up the suspense. It rarely subsides. His rapid-fire speech rolls off his tongue effortlessly. He seems delightfully fond of himself. The second twist is that he, thankfully, is not a singer as Lockwood later chides him about, but an undercover British agent who helped arrange her father's return to England. But Lockwood and her father are duped by Henreid and kidnapped aboard a German U-boat. Her opinion of Henreid is forever altered.

Harrison springs into action posing as a German Major, who convinces the German officials that his “past relationship” with Lockwood will convince her to get her father's co-operation. There are some humorous deliveries between them as the "happy couple" appear set for matrimony. Henreid's suspicions during this charade are realized, and arresting Harrison in Munich is his directive. Caldicott & Charters to the rescue.

While inadvertently listening on a party line, Charters discovers Henreid's plan and contacts Harrison, whom Caldicott finally is convinced it is, in fact, his British friend. They become part of Harrison's altered plan, subduing two Nazi officers (off camera), though feeling quite conspicuous in their uniforms. They become Harrison's escorts to get them, Lockwood, and her father to freedom in Switzerland. Though expertly done for the era, there are numerous miniatures used throughout the film, the mountaintop tramway climax being the last. Trust your suspension of disbelief for the endless supply of bullets from the revolvers of Harrison and Henreid. The escape above a deep chasm peaks the film at the right moment and instantly closes the film. In fact, the film fades to black before the characters exit the scene.

Note: The Australian poster above indicates that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the film as well.

THE STEEL LADY (1953)

Directed by Ewald André Dupont with a screenplay by Richard Schayer, one might suspect Aubrey Wisberg's story was the inspiration for Elleston Trevor's 1964 novel, The Flight of The Phoenix, and the 1965 box office failure. Both films center around crash-landing in the Sahara desert with at least one dissenter in the group and the customary limited food, water, no radio, and any rescue attempt taking too long for their survival. Something has to be improvised. Wisely, the Yuma desert filming got underway at the very end of the previous year. The similarities between this B-movie cast and the 1965 big-budget cast separate the two, but it is sometimes difficult to determine how much. Released by United Artists, it is a concise eighty-four minutes of adventure, produced and edited by Grant Whytock. Concise is not a word used to describe the extra hour added to the more implausible “Phoenix” film. The incredibly prolific Edward Small Productions again provides a movie without a dull moment. What Small did with limited budgets has rarely been equaled.

Heading up the four-man crew of American oil company employees in this film is Rod Cameron and Tab Hunter in his fourth film. Like today's many films or television series with a computer genius who saves everyone's bacon, Hunter nearly fits that role as an electronics expert. John Dehner and Cameron are at odds throughout the film, in light of the former's alcohol addiction. Always available for a few quips is Richard Erdman, the dependable guy with an eye in the opposite (sex) direction. His countenance before crash-landing, lower left below, is both one of inevitable doom and acceptance.

Perhaps, given the naive acceptance of the era's movie patrons—who were less critical about such things—one will need to ignore a few filming and editing shortcomings when viewed today, like the era's painted sandhills or studio backdrop screens. Perhaps most confusing here is the gear-up plane crash, burying the nose in a sandbank. By the next morning, there is a mound of sand piled around the main landing gear (sandbank), which clearly depicts the twin-engine Cessna T-50 in its tail-dragger stance. Then there is the bullet's cartoon ricochet effects off rocks and metal surfaces that sounds more like a metal spring has broken loose from its anchor. But I digress. Nearly every film made—no matter the budget—has something amiss in one detail or the other.

Cameron sets out over a ridge and spots an antenna flag poking above the sand that is connected to a buried World War II Nazi tank. Thinking it may provide them a way out of a dire situation, the crew digs out the sunken tank. They notice German wording on the side, translating into the film's title. After burying the mummified German duo, Hunter repairs their radio with parts from the tank's radio, but it only works long enough to tell their contact in Casablanca that they are alive.

All work together—even Dehner, for the most part—to get the tank mobile using the remaining gasoline from the plane. With zero options, Cameron must also use their remaining water for its radiator, a decision Dehner tries to thwart at gunpoint. Never get into a fistfight with square-jawed Cameron. Adding another element to the story is a satchel of jewels in a hidden storage compartment, a discovery that Dehner keeps to himself. Although there is more to the story than this, it is the same bejeweled tank Bedouin raiders have been trying to find since 1944—implausibly never spotting the flag or tank among the constantly shifting sands. The Bedouin leader, the Hersey-faced John Abbott, offers Cameron horses, pack camels, and water in exchange for the tank. “We love tank!” Amazingly, the foursome agrees to the exchange with none wondering what the desert dwellers could possibly do with a tank unless they fill it with water. Smelling an infestation of desert rats and having first-hand knowledge of the jewels, Dehner alerts Cameron to why the Bedouins are so generous. A shoot-out begins the next morning, with the tank escaping with only dents from the rifle's ammunition.

Note: There is more to the story, including an injured Hunter scrounging together parts to allow a last-ditch effort to send a distress signal, and a mortally wounded crew member who sacrificially holds off the raiders while the other crew gets rescued by another plane.

FOREIGN INTRIGUE (1956)

Directed and produced by Sheldon Reynolds for Sheldon Reynolds Productions but not starring Sheldon Reynolds, this mystery was a box office success for United Artists in spite of an involved, twisty plot and some confusing characters. Reynolds’ one-sheet resumé includes producing the television show of the same name at the same time. He was quite repetitive. American audiences were familiar with the star of this seemingly long, one-hundred-minute film, but not so much the co-stars. Introduced are Geneviève Page as Dominique and the blonde Ingrid Thulin as Brita. An intriguing character of amusing danger is played by Frederick O'Brady as "Mr. Spring." Except for the lone American, Mitchum, I have referred to the cast members by their character names. The slow-burn plot is not short on intrigue. Enjoy the beautiful camera work with lavish interiors and cinematic outdoor locations. One should appreciate Bertil Palmgren for his excellent cinematography during the final climactic scenes. The dark shadows cast by village archways and rich colors add visual intrigue to this film. The tension mounts with Durand’s two tones from a woodblock percussion instrument—a similar effect of water dripping in a drain pipe. But an unresolved ending may make one throw the remains of the popcorn at the screen, however.

The classically-inspired piano solo composition, appropriately entitled “The Foreign Intrigue Concerto” by Charles Norman, opens the film as Victor Danemore returns to his mansion after surveying his enormous flower garden. At the same time, along the French Riviera, Mitchum enters the film to purchase Danemore’s airline tickets. His exit is in a sleek 1949 Delahaye 135 Cabriolet Chapron, accompanied by a frivolity of strings. Paul Durand’s music is never quite right as Mitchum traverses a beautiful high stone arch bridge in a distant shot—foreshadowing the likes of some early James Bond movies—the music here is a vivid mismatch of scene and score as soft flutes take over, setting entirely the wrong mood. The music is better suited for Mitchum net-hunting butterflies in a field. Visually, that would be intriguing.

Mitchum enters the mansion—chest first—to find Danemore on the floor in a position that would be uncomfortable for someone alive. He informs Danemore’s young wife, Dominique, who is not exactly grief-stricken. All the viewer knows at this point is that Mitchum was hired a few years back to write a glowing account of Danemore’s past life. Glowing but fabricated. Not until near the halfway point does one learn that Mitchum is a reporter. But he cannot get any straight answers on how he obtained his wealth. The intrigue gets underway in a complicated intertwining of tales and characters. Mitchum is particularly perplexed by the shadowing of the bald-headed Spring. Throughout the movie, Mitchum seems so relaxed that he probably suspects what is around the next corner. On the contrary, he is flummoxed at every turn. His most frustrating mystery is why so many want to know if Danemore said anything before he died. Sometime after the funeral, in all her feigned sweetness, Dominique pays Danemore's estate representative a visit to request a sealed document. But she is permitted only to verify that it is sealed. He opens the safe, and the screen fades to black. For a second, I thought I passed out. Mitchum stumbles upon another dead body. 

In an effort to unravel the two recent deaths, Mitchum sets off for Stockholm to meet a man associated with Danemore. Unfortunately, the man is no longer living. His daughter, Brita, is there to greet him. Whenever these two are together, Durand’s score erupts with more strings in a bouncy, slightly baroque repetitious ditty. The American is quite smitten with her playfulness. Brita suggests her mother may be able to shed some light on her late husband's connection, yet Mitchum hits another brick wall.

Spring returns as the self-invited guest in Mitchum's hotel room. They share some sarcastic banter while Mitchum shaves. Nonchalantly, Spring informs him of his orders to kill him for that visit to Stockholm. He slowly lifts a small handgun, then Mitchum knocks the gun from his hand with a towel and an uppercut decks him. After he awakes, Spring rubs his jaw in total puzzlement as to why he was punched so hard since they are good friends. It is back to Vienna for Mitchum, where he is finally enlightened about Danemore’s past from four national representatives (below). They request that he proceed with his prearranged night meeting with Spring. Conveniently hidden from his view, Dominique (bottom) approaches Mitchum at gunpoint with a partnership proposal or else. Those foreign officials are nearby, and she is arrested. 

Note: When Dominique pays a condescending visit to Brita and her mother, it is an editing whiplash of sorts. As the mother appears to further elaborate on her husband, the scene abruptly changes to Mitchum looking through Spring’s suitcase. A few words with Spring, and we are suddenly back to the three ladies as Dominique blabs on about Mitchum romancing Brita, only to get the truth on Danemore and blackmail her with that truth. Then it is back to Mitchum and Spring. Then back to the ladies as Dominique leaves the premises with a threat. It all reminds me of many of today’s television crime dramas, where they incorporate the assumed attention span of a gnat into the story.

THE YESTERDAY MACHINE (1965)

When one person is in charge of directing, producing, and the screenplay, beware. They might be a genius or like Russ Marker, the man responsible for this eighty-five-minute debacle. Neither the executive producer nor the entire crew offered any concerns, even for its length. This budgeted film for Carter Film Productions could not even afford a lobby poster for me to post. I doubt there is one cast member of familiarity, with the possible exception of the bloated Tim Holt, hardly recognizable here. He is only two nails shy of sealing his career coffin. One could write numerous paragraphs on why Don Zimmers’ music was used. Worse than the score may be the inept sound engineering by Nick Nicholas, one of the musicians saddled with playing Zimmers’ creativity. There are simply too many disastrously funny things to mention, but here are some obvious points.

I imagine the casting interview might have gone like this for Linda Jenkins, who plays Baton Margie:

"So, Miss Jenkins, we were reading over your resume. Not really that good, is it? Except your baton-twirling abilities are pretty hot. We would like your baton to open our newest movie in the tradition of the snow globe in “Citizen Kane.” Picture yourself in front of a 1960 Buick, with the hood up, twirling the baton while doing an "ants in your pants" dance. You know, something like the Twist. Just sign here and here."

Despite her limited screen time and acting ability, Margie's baton routine is arguably the most famous segment of the film. She turns out to be central to the film. In contrast, Howie’s stalled Buick has not gotten the attention it deserves. As cheerleaders, they have to get to the football game by walking. They are totally lost by nightfall and end up at the wrong campus! Spotting a campfire in the middle of nowhere is an encouragement, but danger lurks there. Howie tells Margie to ‘run like the devil’ back to the car. He fends off two Civil War infantrymen, one of whom, strangely, he knows by name. Howie uses his cheerleader skills to knock out one soldier with a capital “T” gesture, but running away takes a musket ball above the kidney. The credits resume rolling.

Cut to a jazz score and a newspaper office studio set covered by one area microphone. Two “community players” are delivering their lines with the reporter, Jim (lower left above). He is sent out in his 1964 Rambler American...a cinema first...to make sense of the film’s strange opening and to interview Howie, recovering in the hospital. Jim’s performance is one of the film’s better efforts but in perspective, do not forget how awful this film started. He later meets with the police lieutenant, Holt, who recalls a preposterous experience he had in Germany during World War II about a young Nazi officer and his experiments. The kind of scary story a camp counselor would make up around a crackling fire at a YMCA youth camp. Meanwhile, Holt's own conversation with Howie about what happened is totally irrelevant. Holt learns nothing. But we do learn of the reporter’s sense of humor. Jim: Dr. Wilson Blake and the rusty scalpel. Nurse: Oh, you know him? Jim: I should. He broke into me once and stole an appendix. I was disappointed that the sound department did not include a drummer’s rim shot.

One investigator, turning in a credible monologue, returns with a grocery bag. Inside are Margie’s sweater and a Confederate soldier’s cap. He has confirmed the cap is authentic from the Civil War period. The sweater is definitely from Sears and Roebuck. Every time he mentions a strange about his discoveries, the sound department throws in a one-second weird effect. The first is a glass handbell choir, then as fingers strumming across the wires of a grand piano. One of many funny insertions from the sound department.

Margie’s older sister, Sandy, is a nightclub singer in a blonde costume wig from a Dollar Tree store. This is her only film role, and that becomes quite obvious as the movie totally unravels, unlike her wig. Her solo number, unsurprisingly written by Russ Marker, is agonizing. By all accounts, she apparently did the singing, but her deadpan engagement with the camera is so unconvincing it appears dubbed. The bombastic vocal does not match her limp physical delivery. She enlists the help of Jim to find the disappearing Margie. The perfect team! They ultimately find themselves briefly in the 19th Century before being transported to the laboratory of that Nazi youngster Holt referred to. Now an old, crotchety Nazi, he is a raving lunatic with extreme mood swings. This time machine scientist is simply laughable, with a ridiculous bit of overacting on cue. The guy can really hold a grudge, too. The madman reveals all the groundbreaking Nazi things happening near the end of the war. A war he thinks the Yesterday Machine would allow them to win if given a second chance. Prophetic words from a delusional Nutzi.

But good news! Margie was simply whisked away to the Nazi lab on her devil run back to the Buick. Jim and Sandy, after a bit of imprisonment themselves, get help from an "Egyptian Princess" who sets the wheels in motion for their escape. They rescue “Miss Baton of 1965” and escape from the underground lab through a steel escape hatch at ground level. How grass could possibly grow on top of a steel door is a greater mystery. Against the most inappropriate, comic background music, Holt goes into the bunker, shoots the Nazi sympathizer and destroys the time machine. The scientist slumps into the time machine’s transportation chair and vanishes as if the unthinkable might happen...a film sequel. Holt ends the film under military-style muted trumpets and a lame warning to Jim about their current real dangers. The hydrogen bomb. Your neighbors. High-fat foods. History is so...yesterday, Jim.

Note: Tim Holt bowed out of Hollywood in 1971 after one more film and a television appearance. For his early fans, this film would be an embarrassing end to a career that started out strong with films like “The Magnificent Ambersons” or “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” He was a popular Western star, something he predicted upon graduation from Indiana’s Culver Military Academy.

CLOSE-UP (1948)

This seventy-six-minute drama offered one or two surprises during its first run, but it is no surprise today that it was produced by a small studio with the male and female leads somewhat resembling more famous Hollywood celebs. Distributed by Eagle-Lion Films for Marathon Pictures, it is a pretty good tale of fleshing out a Nazi war criminal who has never been brought to trial. The film begins on a comedic note, allowing the characters to endear themselves to the audience. It is never a dull moment with quips flying left and right. Thank the screenplay by John Bright and Max Wilk for these. Additional dialogue was supplied by the director, Jack Donohue. The humor takes a back seat, however, as the plot unfolds.

Alan Baxter is a newsreel photographer in New York City. At times, he appears and sounds like a young, nasal-toned James Gregory. He opens the film with a voice-over that introduces his character and sets the stage for his tale. While on assignment for a high-fashion shoot outside a bank, he unknowingly films a Nazi war criminal, Richard Kollmar, exiting the bank. One of Kollmar's operatives was at the same location and realized the danger of releasing the photos. He buys those frames of film based on a phony story. But it is only a print. Kollmar demands the original negative.

Enter magazine reporter, Virginia Gilmore, looking familiar as the then-current, more famous Jane Greer. Baxter, being a gentleman, is always on the lookout for an attractive female. Gilmore's silk stocking-wrapped ankles are the ticket. They hit it off, one reporter to another. But hold that thought. Baxter is kidnapped by another Kollmar associate, Phillip Huston, posing as a policeman. He and his henchman take Baxter aboard the intimate surroundings of a Staten Island ferry. I was hoping there would not be a “chase” in such small quarters with the usual up-and-down staircase pursuit. But Baxter is in constant motion and does a nifty getaway by stepping onto another ferry going the opposite direction at the dock. All feasible. Director Donohue handled it well.

Still needing the negatives, a goon is sent to kill Baxter's boss, but he never leaves the office. The film's negative remains on his dead body. Baxter gives instructions to his waiting cabbie, Sid Melton, to take the canister to the police if he does not return. Unsuspecting Melton is hit on the melon, and the negative is again on the move. The film switches to an “ankle cam,” focusing on a pair of post-war nylon stockings. In the background is her boyfriend, Huston, as the audience gasps to learn instantly of Gilmore's backstory. In the meantime, Kollmar hired a seaplane to fly him out of the country. Huston accompanies him with Baxter restrained at gunpoint. Huston has plans to double-cross Kollmar, who suspects as much. Huston is eliminated, and Kollmar dashes to the plane with Baxter in pursuit. A sympathy call from Gilmore sent the police to the docks. Kollmar's “ticket” is canceled, and the seaplane heads for open waters. Despite the well-meaning call, Gilmore is going to be without nylons for some time.

Note: Comedian, Joey Faye, (above left), plays Baxter's assistant and is responsible for a big dose of the humor. He pretends to be a cool operator with a camera and the ladies. He has better fortune with the former and comes off as the unknown fourth stooge with the latter. Faye should be appreciated for his delivery, timing, and physical comedy. He ends the film on a comedic note. Not being entirely incompetent, he had the foresight to bring his camera to the shore to film the ending, headlining story. As he steps backward, he falls into a motorcycle sidecar as it speeds away. His camera, still rolling.