Night Train to Munich

n-onesense

A Night Train to Munich is a light thriller and War time propaganda film. Scripted by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, it intentionally reminds the audience of their previous success, The Lady Vanishes: through the emphasis on the train journey in the title (in fact only one part of the story) and the inclusion of the comic English tourists Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne). The film starts much darker than the former film with the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Germany and the arrest of Anna Bomasch (Margaret Lockwood), the daughter of a famous scientist and specialist in armour plating. She is impounded in a concentration camp but escapes through the help of Karl Marsen (Paul Henreid). With the entry of Gus Bennett (Rex Harrison), a British agent, the film becomes lighter, the character fixed by Harrison's witty and debonair persona. The romantic relationship is at first blocked by Bomasch's affection for Marsen, but once it is revealed that he is a Nazi agent who organises the kidnapping of Bomisch and her father, her affection is transfered to Bennett, who follows her to Germany to rescue her and her father - but after this Lockwood becomes a passive character, she is rescued and falls in love, but has little positive impact on the thriller aspect of the film. The propaganda of the film works through a series of contrasts between British and German: the Germans are authoritarian, humourless, obey hierarchies and lack initiative, the British are relaxed, witty, egalitarian and full of initiative. When we see Bennett with his superiors they are relaxed and lounge about (one official passing on a message from his wife about a recipe), they allow Bennett to go to Germany although it is against protocol. Once in Germany Bennett is able to infiltrate the headquarters just through wearing an officer's uniform, the Nazis clicking to attention before his rank. Charters and Caldicott, as in The Lady Vanishes, at first are comically self concerned characters, but once their Britishness is called upon they do the right thing and help Bennett. But the egalitarianism of the British is a class restricted one: the Britishness is one shared by those who have gone to the right schools, who talk in the right way (the few working class characters who are seen keep in their places, which is not making decisions or playing a part in a romantic thriller). One of the few complexities offered by the film - although it is hinted at rather than played through - is in the Paul Henreid character: he realises that Bennett is a foreign agent and this seems due to his understated feelings for Bomasch: he has an emotional basis lacking in the other Nazis, making him a more human character. But the film remains in its undemanding formula of uncomplicated emotions

score /10

n-onesense 20 February 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1603541/