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 4023

The silky Conrad Veidt effortlessly steals the 1932 British thriller film 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 Paris to Rome trans-Europe express, whose passengers include various dastardly spies, art thieves and blackmailers. It is the granddaddy of all train thrillers.

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 a stolen painting. Then there is Sam (Finlay Currie), who is the personal publicist to American movie star Asta Marvelle (Esther Ralston).

Meanwhile horrid rich 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, a suburban golfing maniac. Plus, on the acting front, there are also Joan Barry, Harold Huth, Frank Vosper, Muriel Aked and Eliot Makeham.

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 direction of Forde, mixing the comedy and crime in a perfect cocktail. Acting-wise, of course, the silky Veidt effortlessly steals the show.

The 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 as Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), in which Finlay Currie reappears, this time as the horrid rich man, Alastair MacBane. See also Night Train to Munich (1940).

It is shot at the Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd’s Bush, London, with sets designed by Andrew Mazzei and costumes by Gordon Conway.

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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