Night Train to Munich (1940)

When the Germans march into Prague, armour-plating inventor Dr Bomasch flees to England. His daughter Anna escapes from arrest to join him, but the Gestapo manage to kidnap them both back ... See full summary »

Director:

Carol Reed

Writers:

Gordon Wellesley (based on an original story by), Sidney Gilliat (screenplay),

Stars:

Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Margaret Lockwood	...	Anna Bomasch
Rex Harrison	...	Gus Bennett
Paul Henreid	...	Karl Marsen (as Paul von Hernried)
Basil Radford	...	Charters
Naunton Wayne	...	Caldicott
James Harcourt	...	Axel Bomasch
Felix Aylmer	...	Dr. Fredericks
Wyndham Goldie	...	Dryton
Roland Culver	...	Roberts
Eliot Makeham	...	Schwab
Raymond Huntley	...	Kampenfeldt
Austin Trevor	...	Capt. Prada (as Austen Trevor)
Kenneth Kent	...	Controller (as Keneth Kent)
C.V. France	...	Admiral Hassinger
Frederick Valk	...	Gestapo Officer (as Fritz Valk)

Storyline

When the Germans march into Prague, armour-plating inventor Dr Bomasch flees to England. His daughter Anna escapes from arrest to join him, but the Gestapo manage to kidnap them both back to Berlin. As war looms, British secret service agent Gus Bennet follows disguised as a senior German army officer. His ploy is the not unpleasant one of pretending to woo Anna to the German cause.

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Plot Keywords:

nazi | escape | england | train | nazi germany | 

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Genres:

Thriller | War

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English German

Release Date:

29 December 1940 (USA)

Also Known As:

Night Train

Filming Locations:

Gaumont-British Studios, Lime Grove, Shepherd's Bush, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Productions Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Full Range Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The second of four cinematic appearances by Charters and Caldicott (played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne). They first appeared in The Lady Vanishes, also written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. They later appeared in Crook's Tour, and in Millions Like Us, which was also written by Gilliat and Lauder.

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Goofs

When Dickie Randall (aka Gus Bennett, Rex Harrison's character) is shooting out from inside the cable car station, his handgun changes from an automatic pistol to a revolver as he moves from the window to the door.

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Quotes

Kampenfeldt: [trying to decide the guilt of someone accused of treason - downbeat] This is a fine country to live in.
[upbeat]
Kampenfeldt: This is a *fine* country to live in.
[to camera]
Kampenfeldt: This is a bloody awful country to live in!

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Connections

Featured in A Personal History of British Cinema by Stephen Frears (1997)

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Soundtracks

"Das Lied der Deutschen"
(uncredited)
aka "Deutschland über Alles"
Music by Joseph Haydn
Heard as a theme

User Reviews

The Spy Who Went Into the Cold

Carol Reed, a film craftsman of the highest order, directed this underrated wartime spy-thriller rather early in his career. And though "Night Train" may feel routine as one is experiencing it initially, there are individual scenes and performers which, afterwards, remain vivid in one's memory: the controlled egoism of Rex Harrison's quick-thinking British agent; the vulnerability of Margaret Lockwood's Czech refugee; the naked sensitivity of Paul Henreid's villain, a Czechoslovakian traitor collaborating with the Nazis. This is the romantic triangle around whom are chronicled events leading up to and including September 3, 1939 - the day France and England declared war on Germany after Panzers and Stukas crossed over the Polish border.

The film opens approximately a year earlier, with the camera tracking into Hitler's mountain retreat over Berchtesgaden, as we witness Der Fuhrer himself ordering the occupation of Czech territory. However, the Nazis desire not only territory, but the talented physicists and scientists housed within - geniuses such as Axel Bomasch, an industrial wizard who manages to just escape the clutches of the S.S. and fly safely to Britain, where he is safeguarded by MI-5, in the personage of agent "Gus Bennett" (Harrison). However, Bomasch's daughter, Anna (Ms. Lockwood), is caught and imprisoned in a Nazi concentration-camp where she befriends a fellow inmate, Karl Marsen (Henreid). Both manage to flee their Nazi jailers and sail a tramp steamer for England: Anna, to re-unite with her father; and Marsen, to make contact with those who share his real allegiance - to the Third Reich. With the help of an oculist (Felix Aylmer), planted in England years before by the Abwehr, Marsen arranges for the successful abduction of both Bomasch and his daughter, both of whom are transported to Berlin. Bennett, angry at his own failure to keep Bomasch and Anna within the Allied camp, volunteers to travel into Germany, disguised as an officer of Hitler's High Command, in order to retrieve the pair and atone for his own seeming incompetence.

The film then accelerates into a series of tense confrontations between Bennett and those he hopes to dupe, in both Berlin and on a train-ride to Munich. The action culminates in a skillfully directed chase scene, climaxing on the Swiss border, where the term "cliff-hanger" takes on literal meaning. Along the way, there appear various secondary characters - the 'team' of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, for example, are thrown in for their droll, underplaying of some cleverly written dialogue ("No copies of Punch?! Hmmm. Must have sold out."). But the real comic relief is provided by Irene Handl, as a German stationmaster who, in one scene, brushes off the "gentlemen," Radford and Wayne, like so much confetti. Her deliberate scene-stealing here marks the highest moment of levity in the whole film.

The one element in Carol Reed's storytelling that always distinguished him as a director worth noting was a quality he shared with Jean Renoir

• the generous feeling he had toward his characters, even the so-called

villains. Human flaws and defects such as professional incompetence and blind allegiances on the part of the characters are noted but tolerated – understood in a sense. The rigid bureaucracy of a dictatorial government is deftly satirized in the character of a prissy but practical German civil servant (Raymond Hundley) who, when confronted with a forged document that escaped his notice, is asked by his Nazi superiors if he knows what this will mean for him. The bureaucrat politely replies, "Yes. It means I shall have to sack my secretary."

And in "Night Train's" final shot, we see Henreid's Nazi, jilted in more ways than one; yet Reed frames him sorrowfully, as if he were a sort of Universal Everyloser. Reed's sympathy, therefore, is not with one side in a war. His compassion extends to all humanity. And this, more than anything else, is what partly separates "Night Train" from most of the other countless anti-Nazi films of the early Forties.