Night Train to Munich (1940)

Directed by Carol Reed; produced by Edward Black

It’s several months before Germany starts the Second World War by invading Poland, and she has just seized Czechoslovakia. Too late to capture Czech scientist Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt), whose work on steel could revolutionise armoured warfare, the Nazis arrest his daughter, Anna (Margaret Lockwood), to use as a hostage. The SS have a better idea, however, and plot to use Anna to lead them to her father, now in England. Despatched to foil their plan is the deceptively casual Secret Service operator Dickie Randall (Rex Harrison). Soon, move and counter-move, improvisation and impersonation put everyone - and every scheme - in danger.

Night Train to Munich is in a very similar vein as The Lady Vanishes (1938), a light international adventure story with good plotting, imaginative dialogue, fine performances and memorable characters. The similarity is not surprising, as Sydney Gilliat and Frank Launder wrote both movies; both feature trains prominently, both have top-notch directors (Alfred Hitchcock, in the case of the earlier movie) and both star Margaret Lockwood. They are different enough to enjoy on their own merits, however.

The story is pretty fast-paced, after the characters reach England, and though the plan devised by Randall to whisk the scientist and his daughter from Germany borders on the school-boyish, it is not too far-fetched, given the fact that, as Randall states, he has just forty-eight hours to effect the rescue. Like The Lady Vanishes, though, the writing’s real attraction is in the script, rather than the story.

The dialogue is crisp and snappy, and, though given to numerous characters, is tailored to those characters. Especially noteworthy are the lines given to Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, respectively). Very popular in The Lady Vanishes, these two cricket-enthusiasts were carried over to this film, played by the same actors. Their dialogue is dry and droll, such as when taunted by a German Army officer about going back to England to find ‘safe jobs’ (war had just been declared.) Caldicott mutters, “What cheek! Safe jobs… As if they aren’t all taken, anyway…”

The script incorporates more realism than the story. There are several instances such as the one when a number of British civil servants (likely Secret Service officers) are sitting about discouraged, discussing the loss of the Czech scientist. In between ideas of how to salvage the situation, another gentleman comes into the room and reminds Randall’s boss of an imminent dinner-party, and his wife’s promise to bring a recipe book. Life goes on, even amid international crises.

Despite the war (perhaps because the full horror of Nazi atrocities was not yet known), Night Train to Munich shows the Germans as devoted Nazis, but also bound by the petty annoyances and restrictions of bureaucracy. Witness the station-mistress (Irene Handl), more concerned with getting passengers on and off a train than with the new war. Also, Raymond Huntley, playing an officer in the German Admiralty, seems simply trying to get through his day as easily and as untroubled as possible. This trait (along with actor Huntley) was shared in the recently reviewed movie Pimpernel Smith.

That the acting and writing work so well may be seen in small examples, such as C. V. France’s bit part as an old German admiral. His words and attitudes appear to come from an earlier age, the days of the kaiser, rather than the führer, which of course would be the case. That the film was able to convey this so clearly and concisely shows the talent involved. (And, incidentally, one learns things from old scripts, such as the fact that Berlin of 1939 had double-decker buses, and that what the British called doughnuts looked like muffins.)

Mention should be made as well of Paul von Hernried (later, better known as Paul Henreid), who plays a villain so suavely, and with enough sympathy for his enemies’ plight, that he comes across as almost likeable. The cat-and-mouse contest between Randall and Hernried’s character is highly entertaining. Also appearing in uncredited roles are Torin Thatcher, Hugh Griffiths and Ian Fleming (not the author; though, appropriately, the actor portrays a secret service official.)

All in all, Night Train to Munich is a fun ride, well-written, well-acted and well-directed.

 

The Case of the Frightened Lady (1940)

Directed by George King; produced by S. W. Smith

There are strange doings at Mark’s Priory, the seat of the ancient Lebanon family. The current Lord Lebanon (Marius Goring) is being pressured into marrying his mother’s secretary, Isla Crane (Penelope Dudley Ward), whose door has just been fitted with a bolt - on the outside; a sinister doctor (Felix Aylmer) is at the beck and call of the dowager Lady Lebanon (Helen Haye), for an unknown reason and for unknown purposes; a couple of insolent servants (Roy Emerton, George Hayes) lurk at every corner. It’s not surprising then that a murder is soon committed…

The Case of the Frightened Lady is adapted from a play by Edgar Wallace, one of the most prolific writers of the 1910s and ‘20s, specialising in thriller and adventure stories. He wrote a great many tales at great speed: a cartoon in a Punch magazine I have from the 1920s depicts a book-stall owner tempting a customer with the question, “Have you read today’s Wallace, sir?” It was inevitable that the then-new medium of the motion picture would take advantage of his output, even years after he died, relatively young. Unfortunately, the cinema was not always as kind to his talent as was the written word.

The movie opens with Isla screaming, her nerves frayed to the breaking point. It’s a good opening for a play but comes across as rather affected in a movie. Indeed the story can’t seem to break from its stage origins. This is not always a bad thing in a film, but added to the sets - too much action takes place in the mansion’s improbably wide hall - and the theatre-style direction, it makes for heavy viewing.

The story itself is more interesting than it initially appears. The twists it reveals as it nears its climax turn much of the viewers’ suspicions upside down, which is gratifying. The actual solution is not, unfortunately, as great a surprise. Nonetheless, the story, with its family secrets, old house, hidden passages and creeping servants is entertaining. That it is the sort that was often lampooned as the twentieth century progressed is not really its fault; rather like a cliché that wasn’t a cliché when it started.

Yet the old-fashioned nature of the melodrama is partly to blame for the movie’s failure. I am certainly not one to reject anything because it is either old, or old-fashioned, as readers of this blog may have noted by now. However, there is a large element of The Case of the Frightened Lady that simply doesn’t translate well from stage to screen.

That has little to do with the play’s age; rather, it takes more than just a decent cast and adequate director successfully to bring either a play or a book to the cinema. The stage was, for hundreds of years, the public’s equivalent of what television was in the 1950s and ‘60s. Dozens of plays were written and produced every week - a huge percentage of them, if Punch magazine’s review section may be judged, with detective and mystery plots. Like episodes of many tv series, not all of the plays were good.

At eighty-one minutes, The Case of the Frightened Lady should have moved along briskly; that it seemed rather longer than its running time is an indication of its sluggishness. Fun at times, generally entertaining, the film fails to hold the viewers’ interest throughout. Perhaps a live audience might have helped.

Pimpernel Smith (1941)

Directed and produced by Leslie Howard

In the months before the opening of the Second World War, the security organs of Nazi Germany are vexed and angered by a shadowy figure whisking some of their most prestigious victims from their grasp. Little can they guess that their opponent is a nondescript university professor (Leslie Howard), and the German minister of propaganda, General von Graum (Francis Sullivan) himself, has set himself the task of ridding the Third Reich of this enemy, and the contest proves to be a showdown between good and evil.

From the title to the premise, the movie is clearly an updated re-make of another excellent Howard movie, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), based on the novels of Baroness Orczy, about an English aristocrat risking his life to aid victims of French revolutionary terror. But Pimpernel Smith stands on its own, not just for the different situations and the then current enemy, but for its message.

Firstly, to the actors. There is no better Pimpernel, whether Scarlet or Smith, than Howard. He seemed to embody the English spirit of the times, apparently effete but indefatigable when roused to battle and, indeed, he was a leading light of the British propaganda fight during the war, abandoning his Hollywood career – his rôle in Gone With the Wind was notable – to return to his homeland at the start of the conflict.

His performance here is perfectly on-target. Professor Horatio Smith is vague and absent-minded (a different but similar disguise than had The Scarlet Pimpernel’s Sir Percy Blakeney, who pretended to be a supercilious, superficial fop); Howard convinces the audience easily that he could be that and the constantly-thinking and courageous hero Smith really is. Howard was an actor whose expressions, almost identical to each other, could convey a variety of meanings, and he could make them plain to the audience.

Sullivan was an inspired choice as the principal villain. His immense girth is meant undoubtedly to remind one of Herman Göring, who, among other positions, was head of the German Air Force. (Though a Gestapo officer, Graum is shown always in uniform, no doubt for the overwhelming effect; the Gestapo, being a detective police force, did not wear uniform.) Like Göring, Graum seems almost charming at times, but, also like the real Nazi, there is barbarity and brutality beneath. Sullivan shows both sides of his character as well as Howard does his; he also persuasively endows it with something that is almost like light-heartedness at times, which is not out of place.

The other actors are not as necessary for their parts, though they all do a good job. David Tomlinson has a small rôle as one of Smith’s students, and Michael Rennie plays a concentration camp officer. Roland Pertwee takes the part of a diplomatist, Smith’s brother; this Pertwee also co-wrote the movie’s ‘scenario’ and was father to actor Jon and writer Michael Pertwee. Mary Morris is adequate as the female lead.

The story and the script are as important as the hero and villain, and are exemplary. They are what really contrast Pimpernel Smith from The Scarlet Pimpernel. There is a message here: brains, thought, reason, will always triumph over brawn and brute force, though the latter may have the apparent advantage. This is reinforced in the casting of the leads: Sullivan’s physical presence seems to overawe the almost weedy Howard.

Indeed, the script takes the story’s message and shows it at every opportunity. Smith’s intention to those he helps is signaled by a written phrase denoting the unlimited potential of the mind. Perhaps knowing he can’t save a million, Smith assists those whose intellect will benefit mankind – scientists, writers, artists – and states explicitly that progress and civilisation depend on such people. Even Smith’s career – that of an archaeology professor – reflects the importance of the brain.

There is a rather extraordinary short speech given at the movie’s climax in which Smith describes the inevitable destruction of those who embark on destruction themselves. Like a murderer who must continue to kill to cover his initial crime, they must go on from one atrocity to another; there is no turning back, as there is nothing left on which to build a nation. Words such as these show that Pimpernel Smith wanted to say something, and in so doing, the film becomes more than just the tale of a dashing hero coming to the rescue.

The script also provides unexpected humour and irony. Smith had discovered an ancient Greek statue, and he was smitten with the beauty of the woman in marble. Howard had starred in Pygmalion (1938), an adaptation of the Shaw play inspired by the story of a sculptor’s love for his creation. At an embassy ball, a lady tells Smith that people have remarked on her resemblance to the famous statue; Smith responds that he cannot comment, as the statue is nude…

There are other elements, less fundamental but important. The means by which Smith effects his successful adventures are never shown or described. This may seem a cop-out, but in fact give the character a significant mystique. A magician’s trick becomes mundane when explained, and the illusion is ruined. Pimpernel Smith is not a caper film; if it were, such omissions would blight the movie. Smith’s rescues are about the effect, not the cause.

Flaws exist. The band of students that Smith takes on as helpers, albeit reluctantly, might be seen as liabilities to such ventures, especially the enthusiastic Maxwell (Hugh McDermott). Then again, they had originally been recruited as window-dressing.

A fine adventure film, Pimpernel Smith carries a message that doesn’t overwhelm the plot. Nor does it negate the movie’s entertainment value, which is considerable. There is much to see and hear, and all of it is very good.

Fixed Bayonets! (1951)

Directed by Samuel Fuller; produced by Jules Buck

Left behind as a rear guard for its retreating division, an infantry platoon in the first winter of the Korean War must hold off a huge Chinese force at a critical pass. As casualties take their toll, command of the unit comes increasingly near Corporal Denno (Richard Basehart), an officer-candidate wash-out who didn’t have what it took to lead.

This was the second of Fuller’s Korean war movies, following The Steel Helmet. Though not short on action, it takes plenty of time to examine the psychology of men involved in war, especially the slow, grinding process of attrition. It has some excellent qualities but also a number of flaws.

The acting cannot be faulted. The cast is filled with competent players providing credible performances. Basehart has top-billing as a man who is given authority by default, and wants none of it. Given equal screen-time, however, is a Fuller ‘regular’, Gene Evans, as the tough Sergeant Rock (yes, that’s really the character’s name). Rock is a professional soldier, a veteran of World War Two (whose trail of battlegrounds appears to follow Fuller’s real-life war-record) but one who understands and sympathises with the men in his unit.

The minor characters are well-played by much less known actors (though James Dean, at the time unknown, is in an uncredited role). They are not quite stereotypes but are indefinitely drawn, typical of the era in their bravado and humour. Even so, the writing serves the movie well.

Yet the writing is also partly at fault for the movie’s failings. The screenplay is by the director, and seems to portray Denno’s reluctance to command as coupled with a similar reluctance actually to fight or to kill. The viewer isn’t sure if these are the same problem, related problems or simply the writer not being clear on what he wants to depict. An aversion to command is certainly not identical to an aversion to combat. Indeed, the story does a good job of making it clear that Denno is no coward. But exactly what else he is, is not entirely plain.

I found it strange that there are a number of anomalies related to military matters, as Fuller had himself fought in combat in Tunisia, Sicily and northwestern Europe. With no military experience myself, I could be wrong in my views, but one scene - tense enough cinematically - has a man walking across a minefield while his anxious comrades watch from what appears to be no more than twenty feet away. An anti-personnel mine surely had a killing radius of greater than that.

And again, while the platoon tries to fool the Chinese into thinking that they are facing at least a regiment, the Chinese are able to overlook the American positions. They must have been able to estimate more or less accurately the numbers opposing them. At one point, an officer instructs one of his men to ‘bury the mines’ deep; yet, not only would that help render them ineffective, but the soldier doesn’t follow orders and merely covers them with some snow.

I can’t help receiving from Fixed Bayonets! a feeling of immaturity on the part of Fuller the writer, as opposed to Fuller the film-maker. This may be presumptuous on my part; especially since the subject that seems a victim of amateurism is combat, something Fuller should have known well. The characters in the movie are much better drawn, more realistic, than the over-all depiction of tactics.

In any case, Fixed Bayonets! may be given only a lukewarm recommendation. A good film, it nonetheless is surpassed in quality by many others, not excepting Fuller’s own superb The Big Red One.