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Night Train to Munich (1940)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 5/15

MunichT
5/15: Night Train to Munich is a tale of two halves.

The first half is tacky and doesn't work for me. Even the miniature models look obvious. The sight of the little bitty wires that were cut during the prison escape is laughably funny.

Paul Henreid, who's credited as Paul von Hernried, tries to be incognito as an imprisoned countryman but blows his cover during the medical checkup scene. Rex Harrison initially overdoes his part but becomes better over time, and Margaret Lockwood is forgettable, adding nothing to the film.

Then, the second half comes which is a complete, shameless rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. However, it's an improvement in terms of quality and entertainment with the delight of seeing Charters and Caldicott again. They were fun to watch in the other film. In fact, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne should've been the principal stars instead of Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood.

Another reason for the improvement is the tightening in tension. It gets more dramatic as soon as Charters and Caldicott find out that Karl Marsen knew Bennett was a secret agent. The train scenes are well-done if redundant. Sadly, the film dies by the time it arrives at the mountains for an anticlimactic ending.

All in all, although Night Train to Munich isn't original, the reappearance of Charters and Caldicott more than makes up for it.