Rome Express ***** (1932, Conrad Veidt, Gordon Harker, Esther Ralston, Joan Barry, Harold Huth, Cedric Hardwicke, Frank Vosper, Hugh Williams, Muriel Aked, Donald Calthrop, Finlay Currie) – Classic Movie Review 4,023

The silky Conrad Veidt effortlessly steals Walter Forde’s tremendous 1932 British train thriller movie Rome Express as Zurta, a mysterious professional criminal who organised an art theft.

Director Walter Forde’s tremendous 1932 movie Rome Express is a classic British train thriller, a precursor to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, set aboard the luxurious Paris to Rome trans-Europe express train, whose passengers include dastardly art thieves, adulterers and an American film star tired of fame. It is the granddaddy of all train thrillers.

An extremely valuable Van Dyck painting has been stolen in Paris, and it is now on the train somewhere. Two men are after the third man who has it, but it accidentally falls into the hands of a wealthy businessman who desires it, leading to blackmail and murder.

Among the personnel on this train of fools are the mysterious Zurta (Conrad Veidt) and the dashing Tony (Hugh Williams), both of them crooks chasing Poole (Donald Calthrop), who has done the dirty on them over the stolen Van Dyck painting. Then there is Sam (Finlay Currie), who is the brash personal publicist to American movie star Asta Marvelle (Esther Ralston), who knows Tony from pre-stardom days.

Meanwhile horrid rich businessman and philanthropist Alistair McBane (Cedric Hardwicke) gives a hard time to his meek little minion Mills (Eliot Makeham). And there is Gordon Harker’s Tom Bishop, an English suburban golfing maniac and world-class bore, and Frank Vosper as the French police detective M Jolif. Plus, on the acting front, there are also Joan Barry, Harold Huth, and Muriel Aked.

Despite a few technical wobbles because of its great age, this vintage entertainment is still astonishingly good fun thanks to the finely honed screenplay (based on a story by Clifford Grey), the played-to-the-hilt performances and the express-speed, inventive direction of Forde, mixing the comedy and crime in a perfect cocktail. Forde has a seemingly easy-going, relaxed light touch with the comedy that blends beautifully into an essentially serious and quite dark story.

Acting-wise, of course, the silky Veidt effortlessly steals the show in a splendid show of unabashed villainy, but Harker and the double act of Cedric Hardwicke and Eliot Makeham are very amusing, and Hugh Williams, Donald Calthrop, Finlay Currie and Esther Ralston all do excellent work, in spot-on performances.

The polished screenplay is by Clifford Grey, Frank Vosper (dialogue), Ralph Stock (dialogue) and Sidney Gilliat (one of the writers of The Lady Vanishes).

Rome Express was remade with some plot and character changes as Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), in which Finlay Currie reappears, this time as the horrid rich man, Alastair MacBane, his publicist character nowhere to be seen in the remake.

See also Night Train to Munich (1940).

This highly commendable production is shot at the Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd’s Bush, London, with impressive sets designed by Andrew Mazzei and costumes by Gordon Conway. It is all very plush, and surprisingly convincing looking given that it is all concocted in the studio. There is some splendid camerawork, both on the station at the start and on the train, which is remarkable for a Brit film of 1932.

The cast are Esther Ralston as Asta Marvelle, Conrad Veidt as Zurta, Harold Huth as George Grant, Cedric Hardwicke as Alistair McBain, Joan Barry as Mrs Maxted, Gordon Harker as Tom Bishop, Donald Calthrop as Poole, Hugh Williams as Tony, Frank Vosper as M Jolif, Finlay Currie as Sam the publicist, Eliot Makeham as Mills, and Muriel Aked as Spinster.

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