The Paris Express gives Claude Rains a truly outstanding starring role where a meek little clerk who's devoted almost a couple of decades to the firm he was employed catches his employer Herbert Lom running off with the company assets. When Lom is accidentally killed, it's Rains on a mad impulse takes the money that Lom had in his possession and runs off to Paris.
Detective Marius Goring had been for some time investigating the firm and when Lom turns up dead he catches on quickly that Rains has the stolen money. This man never had so much as parking ticket in his life and Goring tries very hard to get him to return the money and return to being a model citizen.
But Rains has had a taste of adventure and there's a chance for him to live like a playboy. He doesn't have it in him though.
He does however have a suspicious nature about people wanting to be a new friend. That paranoia degenerates Rains into madness. In this it's a lot like the performance he gave in Phantom Of The Opera without the acid burns. Also not unlike his scientist in the Invisible Man.
Helping him along is Marta Toren, a French prostitute with whom Lom was entangled and she'd like to entangle herself with Rains long enough to part him and his loot. Toren is a truly evil woman of the streets. She died young and the screen lost a great talent.
Rains was never a traditional leading man, but his was an ability to really get inside a character's skin. He truly blends into his role as the clerk gone mad with paranoia and middle age hormones pulling him in different directions. Check him out in his final scene with Marius Goring. His closeups tell all.
The Paris Express is a must for fans of Claude Rains and his art.
