SLEEPING CAR TO TRIESTE (1948)

At an embassy ball in Paris, the suave Zurta sneaks into a darkened room, opens a safe, and steals a diary that contains potentially explosive information (it's a complete and utter McGuffin--we don't care, or ever learn, what's in it, only that people want it). He shoots a butler dead on the way out and tosses the diary out the window to his accomplice Karl, then meets his lady friend Valya. The next day, Karl is supposed to hand over the diary, but he double-crosses Zurta and Valya, taking off on the Orient Express (under the name Poole) to sell the diary for himself. Zurta and Valya board the train and find themselves involved with several other passengers, including a married divorce lawyer and mistress, an American G.I. who gets stuck chatting with a man who lectures on birds, the son of a train company executive who has decided to shadow the train's chef in hopes of learning the ropes; an obnoxious author named McBain and his long-suffering secretary, Mills; and an obtuse and talkative Brit named Bishop who has no idea what a pain in the neck he is to everyone else. On top of all this, a famous French detective named Jolif arrives at the last minute. Poole keeps trying and failing to get a compartment to himself; the adulterous couple keep debating their future; and McBain winds up, at least for a while, with the diary, which he wants to use for his own purposes. 

This B-movie train thriller is a little convoluted setting up its characters and motivations, and halfway through, I realized it's based directly on 1932's ROME EXPRESS, sharing not only character types and plot points (and some narrative confusion), but even some names (Poole, McBain, Bishop). I could practically have copied over my ROME EXPRESS review here. This movie is definitely the lesser of the two, but once all the characters settle in and the narrative flow clears up a bit (in the original, the McGuffin is a painting and there's a movie star on board), this is enjoyable enough. The acting here is definitely of a lesser par. The original had the incomparable Conrad Veidt as Zurta and Cedric Hardwicke as McBain (spelled McBane in the 1932 film); here, we get Albert Lieven and Finlay Currie, both of whom are fine but come in second to the originals. David Tomlinson is quite amusing as Bishop, and I liked Bonar Colleano (pictured) as the American soldier. Eventually there is a murder, and a particularly startling death near the end. Other reviewers have noted that there isn't really a hero here (Jolif is an fairly ineffective cop), or even a main good guy we can unreservedly respect, and that's not really a problem. Because of the messy narrative, I was ready to give up on this at the 20 minute mark, but I'm glad I stuck with it. [YouTube]