Night Train to Munich **** (1940, Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, James Harcourt, Felix Aylmer, Roland Culver) – Classic Movie Review 1832

Carol Reed’s fast-moving, enjoyable 1940 thriller film Night Train to Munich is written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. It brings back Margaret Lockwood as the heroine, and Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as cricket-mad Brits Charters and Caldicott. 

Director Carol Reed’s fast-moving, enjoyable 1940 thriller film Night Train to Munich is written by the reliable team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who try to repeat the trick of their script for Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and nearly succeed.

There’s a 24-carat sparkle in another repeat outing for three of that movie’s main and best elements – (1) an exciting train ride, (2) another star turn for Margaret Lockwood as the heroine and (3) new capers for the same duo of quirky cricket-mad Brits Charters and Caldicott, played again by the irreplaceable Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne.

Unfortunately, this time the yarn, based on Gordon Wellesley’s Oscar-nominated original 1939 short story Report on a Fugitive, is harder to swallow. But it doesn’t spoil the fun.

Sidney Gilliat claimed that Wellesley’s story constituted only the first ten minutes of the film, and that the rest of the story came from him and Launder.

Rex Harrison gives his usual impeccably polished performance as British secret service agent Gus Bennett, who masquerades as a senior German army officer to snatch a Czech scientist, armour-plating inventor Dr Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt), and his daughter Anna (Lockwood) from the Nazis to safety.

They have fled to England, but when the Gestapo kidnap them back to Berlin, Bennett follows in disguise and then pretends to enlist Anna over to the German cause.

And there is a big helping of energetic wartime adventure entertainment, as well as plenty of high spirits from the actors and taut suspense conjured up by Carol Reed, the director of The Third Man and Odd Man Out.

Intriguingly, Charters and Caldicott appeared in the first draft of Graham Greene’s screenplay for The Third Man but the characters were amalgamated into one, played by Wilfrid Hyde-White.

Paul Henreid [Paul von Hernried] also stars as Karl Marsen, while Kenneth Kent, Felix Aylmer, Roland Culver, Eliot Makeham, Raymond Huntley, Austin Trevor, C V France, Frederick Valk [Fritz Valk] and Wyndham Goldie co-star.

The film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 26 July 1940 and on 29 December 1940 in the US.

See also the granddaddy of all train thrillers 1932’s Rome Express and Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), both classic British train thrillers.

Sadly it was the last of several films Margaret Lockwood made for Carol Reed, after their professional relationship ended when she turned down the female lead role in his 1941 film Kipps.

Radford and Wayne’s four official Charters and Caldicott film appearances are in The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), Crook’s Tour (1941), and Millions Like Us (1943).

But they also appeared in The Next of Kin (1942) as careless talkers on train, Dead of Night (1945) as Parratt and Potter, A Girl in a Million (1946) as Prendergast and Fotheringham, Quartet (1948) as Garnet and Leslie, It’s Not Cricket (1949) as Bright and Early, Passport to Pimlico (1949) as Gregg and Straker, unnamed in Helter Skelter (1949), and Stop Press Girl (1949) as The Mechanical Types.

The cast are Margaret Lockwood as Anna Bomasch, Rex Harrison as Dickie Randall / Gus Bennett / Ulrich Herzog, Paul Henreid as Captain Karl Marsen (credited as Paul von Hernried), Basil Radford as Charters, Naunton Wayne as Caldicott, James Harcourt as Axel Bomasch, Felix Aylmer as Dr John Fredericks, Wyndham Goldie as Charles Dryton, Roland Culver as Roberts, Eliot Makeham as Schwab, Raymond Huntley as Kampenfeldt, Austin Trevor as Captain Prada, Kenneth Kent as Controller, C V France as Admiral Hassinger, Frederick Valk (credited as Fritz Valk) as Gestapo Officer, Morland Graham as Teleferic Attendant, Hugh Griffith as Sailor, and Billy Russell as Adolf Hitler.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1832

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