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Time Bomb (1953) More at IMDbPro »
10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
I like trains!, 9 November 2001
Author: timdotm from Coto de Caza, Ca
I found this movie fairly enjoyable -- A good escape. It does not have a sophisticated plot, but it is nonetheless captivating. I particularly liked the imagery and the feel of the movie, the "cold, damp England at night" look. As a railroad enthusiast, I really liked the early sequences involving the steam-powered freight.
Glenn Ford is a favorite and did well. Despite his lack of lines, I thoroughly enjoyed "Old Charlie" (Herbert C. Walton). I suspect that is what I will be like at his age...
8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Ford saves the day, 14 August 2005
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
One of the studios that had dual claim on Glenn Ford's services sent him to Great Britain to head the cast in this thriller. A saboteur played by Victor Maddern has planted an explosive device in a freight train that is carrying a load of sea mines. The police discover there's a bomb on the train and divert on to a siding in a suburb and evacuate the surrounding area. And they send for Glenn Ford to find and disarm the device.
Set at the height of the Cold War, Terror on a Train has assumed a new relevance for today given what just happened in London. I'm sure some purist do-gooders will be horrified at the thought of handcuffing Victor Maddern to the train he's sabotaged, but personally I rather like the concept.
Glenn Ford as a demolition expert was said to be Canadian which was a usual device to justify American stars playing in British films or in a British setting in American films. Except in this case Ford was really Canadian. Like it said in the movie, Ford was in fact born in a small town in Quebec although his family did move to America when he was a lad.
Nicely paced, edge of your seat movie with a trick ending. I think film fans of today would appreciate it now.
12 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Good old 50's black & white , highly watchable for the names in the cast and also the post war locations, 20 January 2005
Author: Pauly47 from United Kingdom
I think that this is a very under rated 50's film with terrific cast. Yes, of course the film seems dated by today's standards. And the very "obvious" solution to the explosive problems is completely ignored.. Park it somewhere in the uninhabited countryside. But just have a look at the full list of credits. Some wonderful names there from this era. Some at the start of illustrious careers. Laurence Naismith, Sam Kydd, Maurice Denham, Arthur Mullard, Bill Fraser etc etc. Many of them uncredited in the film.I have another interest in this movie, I am quite certain that my grandfather was hired to drive the locomotive in the train sequences.
6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
The Home Streatch is the longest part of the track, 19 August 2005
Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA
Post-war thriller set in the English cities of Birhimgham & Portsmouth with a rail a shipment of hundreds of one ton deep sea mines about to explode.
After British Constable Charles Barron, John Horsley, got into a scuffle outside the Birhingham train station with what was at first thought to be a local hobo, Victor Maddern, it was later found at the rail yard a suitcase of full detonators and and bomb making components. Realizing that the person at the train yard was up to no good the police keep the train from going to it destination the Navel Yard at Porthmoth to prevent a major disaster when it gets there.
The film "Terror on a Train" goes into high gear with the local Birhingham authorities getting in contact with foamer US Army bomb specialist Peter Lyncort, Gleen Ford, who's in town vacationing with his wife Janie, Anne Vernon. Peter seemed to be Happy when he got the news from the city's security chief Jim Warrilow, Maurice Denham,since Janie had just walked out on him after their tenth fight in just one month. This would in some way get his mind off his personal problems and give him a chance to save the world, or at least the city of Birmingham.
The police set a trap for the saboteur, who planned and set up the entire nightmare, by stationing police at the Porthsmouth railway station knowing that he, the saboteur, will be there to see the fruits of his labors like an arsonist who stays at the scene of his crime, and to most cases helps in trying to put out the fire.
Spotted by Constable Barron the suspect is quickly apprehended and flown, by helicopter, back to Birmingham to help Peter and his now assistant Warrilow find and disarm the explosive charge hidden in one of the hundreds of underwater mines.
Tense and effective the movie has a somewhat surprise ending when you already thought that the danger was over. Glenn Ford is cool as a cucumber throughout the entire film even putting up with old and nutty Charlie, Herbert C. Walton,who obsessed with trains to the point where he almost gets himself killed.In his trying to get on the dangerous bomb ladened train and distracting both Lyncort & Warrilow from doing their job in preventing the bomb from exploding and taking them, together with Charlie, and the entire city of Bermingham out with it.
During this whole time, while her husband Peter was out risking his life, Janine is completely unaware of what's going on. Coming home to make up with Peter, this would be the 11th time in the last thirty days, after their latest spat Janie finds the hotel room deserted at 3AM in the morning and goes on the phone calling all the hospitals in town fearing that Peter met up with some accident.
It was fitting that at the end of the movie Janie finding out what was really going on with her husband. Thank God he wasn't out painting the town red with another women and that he was at the railway yards disarming a booby trapped one ton undersea mine; Janie by pure chance made it there just in time for the movies grand and explosive finally.
7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Looks great...and that's about it, 23 October 2006
Author: ashew from United States
This is exactly the type of film that frustrates me the most. Great cast, great director, great story potential, then they ruin it all with a screenplay that goes nowhere...and says nothing while going there! There is no depth here whatsoever. No depth of characters, no depth of plot, no depth of surprise, suspense, or common sense. We know what's happening, we are told how they plan to fix the problem, they fix the problem, throw a surprise at us near the end that fails to generate any suspense, then they end the film abruptly. Wasted opportunity.
On the plus side, Glenn Ford leads a cast of UK (and one French) actors who are all fantastic, doing an incredibly impressive job with the one-dimensional writing they were given. One of the absolute favorites is Herbert Walton as "Old Charlie", who provides some wonderful bits of humor and warmth to a dark and serious film. I also thought the film had a great look to it...all shadows and fog...very film noir in feel.
Even though the actors do the best they can and the directing is enjoyable, it still just isn't enough for me to recommend spending the time to view the film. There are far better Glenn Ford movies out there: The Big Heat, Gilda, Affair in Trinidad, etc.
3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Sheesh, It Was Not A One Star Film!, 27 July 2007
Author: verbusen from Fahaheel, Kuwait
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
Some people have rated this a one star, too each his own, but they probably have not seen many movies to think this is that low. A simple straightforward thriller. I really enjoyed this film. If you don't like older, lower budget films than this wont be your cup of tea, so to speak, but I do like them and being made by MGM it had quality all over it. I would have thought that in post war London they would have had no trouble finding hundreds of bomb disposal people than to use one Canadian though! I was also saying to myself, how is he going to search that whole train by himself? In reality they probably would have had dozens of war vets searching that train, but that wouldn't have been much fun, now would it? I liked that it wasn't the Glenn Ford show, there was the patrolman searching for the terrorist, and the sergeant who was with the Detective and so forth, even the Royal Navy pitched in with an early helicopter, so it was a good group effort. A reason why I also enjoyed this movie was the banter among the characters like the scene when the switch man tells the train conductor that he needs to dump off his load in a siding and the conductor is reluctant to do it, that seemed real, I really liked that. Well if your watching Turner Classic movies in the middle east (like me) and are tired of the limited movies they usually show, it's worth a watch from start to finish. 7 of 10, Ford was pretty good! Oh and if you want a true one star film check out Beast Of Yucca Flats, thats a real "worse film ever made"!
1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
"I like trains!", 9 April 2008
Author: theowinthrop from United States
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
If there is any reason to see this little suspense film, it is the appearance of Old Charlie (Herbert C. Walton), an old codger who is entering senility but has an endearing habit of loving trains. And there is this nice big one parked behind the church near his home that only one fellow seems to be on. Unfortunately Old Charlie doesn't realize the train is going to explode about seven o'clock - a time-bomb is on the train, and as the cargo of the train is a set of old navy mines, it can level the town or city it is in.
The nearest city is Birmingham, England (where some of my ancestors came from), but the authorities, acting on the telephoned threat of the saboteur (Victor Maddern) have acted fast enough to get the train side tracked to a relatively less populated area. Even so, the scenes of the townspeople being transported away by bus makes one realize how really complex evacuations can be. Just change this film's weapon from a booby trapped train to a dirty bomb threat and one can see it's still very valid.
As I watch TIME BOMB I realize that it bears comparison to a contemporary British film, SEVEN DAYS TO NOON, made about 1950. That film was about a pacifist nuclear scientist who plants an atomic bomb in London to force Britain to disarm it's nuclear arsenal. Again it too had massive urban evacuations (in Britain's capital). And like this the threat is eventually overcome.
The difference here is that sheer chance causes the threat in SEVEN DAYS TO NOON to collapse. Here it is due to the really dangerous work of bomb deactivation expert Major Peter Lyncourt (Glenn Ford, playing a Canadian here). Lyncourt is suffering from marital problems with his French wife Janine (Anne Vernon), who walks out on him in despair at the rut their marriage seems to be in (she hates Birmingham). He is approached by Scotland Yard (Maurice Denham as Inspector Wanlow) to assist in disarming the train before the bomb explodes the cars at about seven in the following morning. Lyncourt agrees to this, and most of the film follows the slow attempt of the Major in going through one car after another after another and through each of the mines to find the triggering mechanism that will cause the explosion.
At the same time, we watch Janine fending off a masher at a coffee shop while waiting for the train, and finally heading home to find her husband missing. Only gradually does she figure out where Peter has gone off to.
One final thread is the search for the saboteur. Constable Charles Baron (John Horsley) had a brief struggle with the saboteur but was knocked out. However he knows what he looks like, and he figures the saboteur will probably go to a spot to see the explosion. So he is waiting from one train to another for the saboteur to show up...and keeps being disappointed.
The finale pulls all the threads together, including good old Charlie. At the end he is allowed to enjoy his train. God bless him. A nice little thriller, it is not a major work in Glenn Ford's career, but it certainly keeps one interested to the end.
1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Some Very Tense Moments, 25 January 2008
Author: whpratt1 from United States
Enjoyed this 1953 film starring Glenn Ford, (Major Peter Lyncort) and his wife Janine Lyncort, (Ann Vernon). This film starts off with the production of many Sea Mines being manufactured in a factory during war time in England and placed on a great number of flat bed freight cars and covered up with canvas coverings. As these mines are in the freight yard a man is discovered leaving under one of these mines and hits a railroad policemen and escapes. The railroad police notify the local police and state officials and they try to stop this train before it explodes and destroys an entire town. The authorities discover there is a man named Major Peter Lyncort who is a U.S. Army bomb expert and they contact him to see if he can dismantle any bomb that might be placed on the Sea Mine train. There is a family problem developing between Major Lyncort and his wife Janine Lyncort, (Ann Vernon) who wants to leave her husband because she finds him very boring and is unhappy with her marriage. There is some very tense moments in this film and there is also some very funny humor with a very old English gentlemen named Old Charlie, (Herbert Walton) who loves trains and just so happens to want to ride on the train load of mines, which makes for some great English humor. Great film and very entertaining.
5 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Take a tense ride on a rolling time bomb., 22 September 2000
Author: Michael O'Keefe from Muskogee OK
When I first saw this movie, it was titled TERROR ON A TRAIN and was the back half of a double feature. Glenn Ford, an armament expert is called on to defuse a hidden bomb on a train loaded with high explosives. The tension is slow and steady; and this black & white film runs only about an hour and twelve minutes. All these years later on TV; the tension and drama has lost most of its impact. This is still a good movie as far as early 50s standards go.
Along with Ford are Anne Vernon and Maurice Denham. The villain/saboteur is played by Victor Maddern.
1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
"I Like Trains", 1 December 2006
Author: Martin Dawson (flugluftholgate@hotmail.co.uk) from United Kingdom
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
This film is brilliant!!! Our Lass and I have just watched it on Turner Classic Movies, we discovered it by accident and what a film, all I can say is watch it.... Look out for the old boy 'I like trains, can I climb on?' he's the real hero!!! Would like to have seen the rugby tackle, I guess they knocked each other out!!! The locomotive is 48600, a Stanier 2-8-0 of the Midland Region of British Railways, its an ex-LMS locomotive, only three were preserved and this one was not.... although some 150 odd survived to the end of steam on BR in 1968 also look for the beautiful MG sports car, yummy.... To sum up, a fantastic period piece from the early 1950's.
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