Night Train to Munich

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Night Train to Munich
Country of production UK , USA
original language English
Publishing year 1940
length 93 minutes
Rod
Director Carol Reed
script Sidney Gilliat
Frank Launder Original Story
: Gordon Wellesley
production Edward Black
for 20th Century Fox
music Louis Levy
camera Otto Kanturek
cut RE Dearing
occupation

Night Train to Munich is a feature film in English - US co-production by 20th Century Fox Film Corp and directed by Carol Reed . A British agent ( Rex Harrison ) assumes the identity of a Nazi officer in order to better protect a Czech inventor and his daughter ( Margaret Lockwood ).

The plot of the film is based on Gordon Wellesley's story Report on a Fugitive .

action

When the National Socialists invaded Prague in 1939 , the brilliant scientist Axel Bomasch, who was working on the development of indestructible armor casings that could be essential for the Allied defense, tried to flee to Great Britain with his daughter Anna. Anna is arrested and sent to a concentration camp , where she is interrogated and confronted with questions about her father's invention. Anna refuses to provide information, stating that she does not know any details and does not know what exactly the invention is about. Karl Marsen was arrested with her, allegedly because of his anti-Nazi stance. Karl helps Anna escape. On a train they reach London, where Karl made contact with his friend Dr. John Fredericks picks up. During a conversation that both of them have alone, it turns out that Karl works for the Gestapo and that Anna has sneaked the trust of Anna on their behalf in order to get to her father through them. Karl advises Anna to place a newspaper ad in the Personals section, from which her father can infer that she had managed to escape to England. Soon after, Anna receives a call from a certain Gus Bennett, an intelligence officer, asking her to come to the seaside resort of Brightbourne, where he will be waiting for her in the disguise of a singer. Anna keeps the time and place of the meeting secret from Karl, as Gus advised her. In fact, Gus brings the young woman to her father, who now works for the Dartland naval base. However, Gus imposes various restrictions on her private life, as her father must be protected at all costs. Since Anna feels constricted, there is an argument with Gus when she tells him that she wants to speak to Karl. He tells her that her abduction and subsequent escape was directed by Karl, who works for the Nazis. Anna is outraged by Karl's real identity, but gets to know his real face when he seizes her and her father and threatens to send her to a camp for good if her father does not agree to work for the National Socialists. Both are brought back to Germany in a submarine .

In the meantime, Gus Bennett has succeeded in infiltrating the control center of the German high command by assuming the identity of the engineer in the rank of Major Ulrich Herzog. Opposite Capt. He lets Prada and Admiral Hassinger announce that he had had an affair with Anna four years earlier and that he was sure that he could get her to influence their father so that he would work for the National Socialists. This is how they arrange a meeting between the alleged Major Herzog and Anna in a Berlin hotel. When Karl learns that Anna and Herzog will be spending the night together in a hotel, he reacts with jealousy and distrust. He insists on escorting the train that is supposed to bring the Duke and the Bomaschs to Munich, since he suspects that Duke is preparing Anna's escape. At the train station they meet the Englishman Caldicott, who wants to leave Germany with his friend Charters. He recognizes in Herzog resp. Gus is his classmate Dickie Randall and is surprised to see him in a German Wehrmacht uniform and is also irritated by his evasive manner. When the train is temporarily stopped, he and Charters overhear a phone call that Marsen is making with headquarters shortly thereafter find out from a recall that Bennett's masquerade has been blown. You got it right that Bennetts is an undercover agent who is now in great danger.

The two Englishmen decide to help their compatriot. When the train arrives in Munich, Anna, Gus and Axel Bomasch manage to escape in a car with the help of Caldicott and Charters. However, Karl and his men take up the chase, which ends at the Swiss border, where the refugees can first escape into a cable car while Bennett tries to shake off the pursuers. He fired a shot at Marsen, who wounded his leg, and then, in a breakneck action, jumped on a tram that was on its way to neutral Switzerland and got himself to safety. The cable car has now also reached its destination. During a loving hug, Anna and Gus admit their feelings for each other.

Production and Background

The film was shot in the British Gaumont Studios in Shepherd's Bush, London . The film premiered in London in May 1940 . It officially started on October 18, 1940.

This film was released in the UK under the title Gestapo , but then renamed Night Train to Munich . Another planned title should have been Crooks Tour . Gordon Wellesley's original story on which the film material is based, entitled Report on a Fugitive ( report of an escape ). The film, produced by 20th Century Fox Productions for 20th Century, was distributed in the UK by MGM to meet quota requirements. Many reviewers emphasized the similarity to Hitchcock's crime comedy A Lady Disappears , the script of which is also by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as Caldicott and Charters have also been there as eccentric characters with a penchant for cricket . In the English episode film Dream Without End from 1945, Radford and Wayne played very similar roles again. When Night Train to Munich was published at the time, it was mistakenly referred to as a sequel to A Lady Disappears . It is true that the film is based on a similar plot and in both films a clever young woman in an emergency is the main character, but the women are not identical, one is called Iris and the other Anna, even if both are played by Margaret Lockwood.

Cinematographer Otto Kanturek died a year later in a plane crash while filming the film A Yank in the RAF .

Music in the film

  • Only Love Can Lead the Way
written by Harry MacGregor Woods , performed by Rex Harrison
Music: Joseph Haydn , instrumental
  • It's true
written by Harry MacGregor Woods, performed by Rex Harrison
  • Your Heart Skips a Beat
Music: Arthur Johnston , lyrics: Maurice Sigler, performed by Rex Harrison and an unnamed woman
  • If I Could Be with You ( One Hour Tonight )
Music: James P. Johnson , Text: Henry Creamer , whistled by Rex Harrison while he was waiting in a hotel room in Berlin.

criticism

Handelsblatt Motion Picture Herald spoke Night Train to Munich on 8 June 1940, a praise for its topicality so soon after the Battle of Dunkirk , where it was the British and French succeeded before the city fell to the Germans, the majority of evacuate allied soldiers. It also said that the film used the spirit of actual events to show what war meant.

Time Out confirmed the film's furious pace, especially during the train ride and the cable car scenes, the cast and script were also good, but Reed Hitchcock's ability to create deadly tension was lacking, his witty touch and his ability to create tension from ordinary circumstances to let.

Variety noted that the film was made by the same British studio as 'A Lady Goes Away', has the same theme, the same scriptwriters, Margaret Lockwood in the female lead, and even Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as English tourists with a ridiculous interest in them Cricket was similarly built into the film . It was also said that Reed's performance was commendable, Lockwood was an attractive heroine and her portrayal was straightforward and convincing. Harrison is as smooth as the ubiquitous British operative, while Paul Henreid is rightly cold-acting, like a treacherous Gestapo agent. Radford and Wayne would repeat their portrayal of stupid British people, as they did in the film A Lady Goes Away .

Awards

1942 was Gordon Wellesley in the category "Best Original story" for an Oscar nomination. However, the award went to Harry Segall , whose play Errtum im Himmel ( Heaven Can Wait ) was the model for the comedy film Urlaub vom Himmel .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Night Train (1940) Original Print Information at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  2. ↑ a b Night Train (1940) Notes at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  3. ↑ Night Train to Munich at qnetwork.com. Retrieved February 9, 2014.
  4. ↑ Night Train to Munich "GA from Time Out says" In: Timeout.com (English). Retrieved February 9, 2014.
  5. ↑ Review: 'Night Train to Munich' In: Variety, 1940. Retrieved on February 9, 2014.