Rome Express

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Movie
German title Rome Express
Original title Rome Express
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1932
length 94 minutes
Rod
Director Walter Forde
script Sidney Gilliat based
on a story by Clifford Gray
production Michael Balcon for Gaumont-British Picture Corp., London
music Leighton Lucas
camera Günther Krampf
cut Frederick Y. Smith
Ian Dalrymple
occupation

Rome Express is a 1932 British crime film directed by Walter Forde . It marks the beginning of the English film career of the German screen star Conrad Veidt .

action

A valuable painting by the famous Flemish Baroque painter Anthonis van Dyck has been stolen from a Paris art gallery . A little later, a number of very different people board the Paris-Rome-Express of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits . A particularly sinister fellow seems to be the ominous Zurta, who is on this train with an accomplice looking for the stolen painting. Zurta has already identified a suspect, a certain Poole. Evidently afraid of being seen in public, this man decides to lock himself in his sleeper compartment for the entire journey.

While searching for the picture, Zurta soon stumbled upon a number of other passengers, including an adulterous couple, a golf player, a wealthy and stingy businessman with his victimized secretary, a French police inspector who was traveling as a normal family man, and a US -Film star with her manager. By chance the image is tracked down and now wanders through the hands of some of these passengers during the train journey. Zurta kills Poole, who was actually his other accomplice in the picture theft, and is caught a little later by the police officer. When Zurta then tries to flee in the face of the seemingly hopeless situation, he jumps from the train at full speed and is (presumably) killed, the film leaves that open. The found painting goes back to its owner.

Prehistory and production background

In 1932, lead actor Conrad Veidt was hired by the British producer Michael Balcon with a lucrative and long-term contract with Gaumont-British Picture. The great commercial success of Rom-Express soon made Veidt a crowd-pleaser and box-office magnet on the islands. Its popularity, especially with moviegoers, ultimately led to the advertising slogan "Women Fight for Conrad Veidt!" In Great Britain in the 1930s.

Rom-Express had its world premiere on November 21, 1932 in London (sales presentation). The British mass start was on February 3, 1933. The German premiere took place in the “ Third Reich ” on August 8, 1934 in Berlin's atrium cinema, the Austrian on August 31 of the same year. At this point in time, Hitler's Germany had not yet become aware of Veidt's involvement in the pro-Jewish film Jud Suss , as this film adaptation of the Feuchtwanger novel of the same name had its world premiere on October 4, 1934. Since then, no further (British) Veidt film has been released in German cinemas and Veidt has even been massively attacked personally in the Völkischer Beobachter .

Rom-Express is considered the forefather of all train thrillers. Already in 1937/1938 Alfred Hitchcock took on a very similar subject and shot a famous crime thriller with A Lady disappears , which despite a literary model from 1936 cannot hide its borrowings from Rome Express . In 1948 an official remake of Rome Express was filmed with a sleeping car to Trieste .

The criticism praised u. a. above all the camera work of the star cameraman Günther Krampf, who was hired from Germany to England in early 1932 .

criticism

Critic BW discussed the Rome Express in the winter edition of Cinema Quarterly . It says: “If this is an example of the type of film that the new Gaumont-British Studios will be releasing in the future, we can expect camera-technical brilliance, precise observation and perfect entertainment. (...) In any case, this film is a first-class work. The restriction of the location (...) could very easily have led to a waning of interest in the story, but Forde did everything possible to convincingly reproduce the authentic atmosphere of a continental long-distance train. The impression of constant movement is present in every shot. "

The Austrian Film-Zeitung said on August 11, 1934: "The actors, with Conrad Veidt at the top, consistently offer high-level performances."

In the New York Times issue of February 27, 1933 , Mordaunt Hall found : “This film may not quite live up to the superlatives lavished on it in London, but it is a well-produced and generally compelling melodrama, the interest of which is greatly increased by having all the action occur on a train bound from Paris to the Italian capital ... "

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: “Just a little faded now as sheer entertainment, this remains the prototype train thriller from which The Lady Vanishes, Murder on the Orient Express and a hundred others are all borrowed. (...) Technically it still works very well though the script needs modernizing ”.

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: “Seminal mystery thriller that spawned many imitations, including THE LADY VANISHES and NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH among other. Entertaining if slightly talky tale of assorted group of passengers caught up in criminal activities aboard train ".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 652.
  2. ↑ There it said in the edition of November 23, 1934: Veidt was “no longer humanly worthy that even a finger in Germany should move to his praise”.
  3. ↑ cit. n. London Calling. Germans in British Film of the 1930s (edited by Hans-Michael Bock, Wolfgang Jacobsen, Jörg Schöning), a CineGraph book, Munich 1993, p. 154.
  4. ↑ "Rome Express". In:  Österreichische Film-Zeitung , August 11, 1934, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / fil
  5. ^ Rome Express at nytimes.com
  6. ↑ Translation: "This film may not quite come close to the superlatives that have been poured out about it in London, but it is a well-produced and generally gripping melodrama that knows how to increase interest in it thanks to all those acts, which take place during a train journey from Paris to the Italian capital. "
  7. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 866
  8. ↑ Translation: “Now a little out of date as pure entertainment, this film remains important as a prototype of all train thrillers from which A Lady Disappears, Murder on the Orient Express and a hundred others borrowed the plot. (...) From a technical point of view, the film still works well, but the script needs an overhaul. "
  9. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1110
  10. ↑ Translation: “Groundbreaking mystery thriller that has spawned numerous imitators, including EINE DAME VERCHWINDET and NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH among others. Entertaining, albeit a bit chatty, story of a crowd of passengers who are embroiled in a criminal story on board a train. "

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