Pack your bags for one of movie history's greatest trips, a nifty film noir thriller that Time deemed "worthy of being bracketed in the select group of train thrillers headed by Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes." The tracks run direct from Chicago to L.A. The OscarO-nominated* story, directed by Richard Fleischer (The Boston Strangler) and scripted by his frequent collaborator Earl Felton, zigzags with surprise turns. Film noir favorite Charles McGraw plays a cop guarding a gangster's moll (fellow genre icon Marie Windsor) as she travels west to testify before a grand jury. Also riding the Pullmans: determined hitmen who know the moll is on the train?but don't know what she looks like. All aboard!
This gem of a B-picture from RKO is the kind of trim, beautifully paced movie people have in mind when asking, "Why don't they make 'em like that anymore?" Two cops have to guard a gangster's widow against assassination as she rides the Golden West Limited sleeper train from Chicago to give evidence in L.A. Soon there's only one cop (gravel-voiced Charles McGraw, usually cast as a villain), and he's finding the sharp-tongued widow (Marie Windsor in excelsis) as obnoxious as she is endangered. Nothing goes quite as you'd expect in this exemplary train thriller, which rattles and rocks toward its destination without a music track or a wasted moment. The bad guys include a most distinctive, elegantly garbed hitman (Gordon Gebert); a soft-spoken, "Be reasonable, Sergeant" negotiator (the vulpine Peter Brocco); and possibly the fat man (Paul Maxey) who keeps blocking up the train corridor at just the wrong time. Detour writer Martin Goldsmith worked on the story, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and George E. Diskant's black-and-white cinematography is as sharp as the work he was doing for Nicholas Ray around the same time. Director Richard Fleischer went on to bigger things--but he never made a better movie. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
A fine example of Film Noir:
It's been while since I watched this DVD, but I have to say it should be in the top 10 of best Film Noir movies of all time.
Love Charles McGraw in the flick, what an under appreciated actor !!
Cliches aside, this is just the ticket for drama:
B movies are often thin on star quality, filled with cliche story lines and cheap one liners and made on the cheap. This film is all of that BUT it has a simple and effective storyline that allows everything else to fall in line and create a riviting film. AT 70 minutes, there isn't a lot of time fluff - this movie gets with it and for a very few moments stays on track, figurativly and literally. The story is that cop has to escort a dame (lower case, of course) so she can make it to California and... more info
Classic tough guy film noir from 1952:
Some time ago, I saw the remake of this film with Gene Hackman. I wasn't much impressed. Recently, I stumbled on a DVD version of the remake and decided to compare it with this 1952 classic. Let me now be perfectly clear. If you have any wish to retain even a vestige of respect for the remake, DO NOT view it in conjunction with this brilliant original! With the single exception of Gene Hackman (who at least struggled to make some bricks, despite an acute lack of straw), the remake was lame in every... more info
Who will cry for Sarah?:
I am embarrassed and ashamed that I, The Queen, had not seen this excellent noir before. I am also thrilled to learn that there are still undiscovered (to me) gems out there!! Two detectives are assigned to protect the wife of a mobster during her travel to LA, in order to provide the police with her husband's list of co-conspirators. The detectives wonder what kind of woman would marry a mobster? Well they find out, and how! Marie Windsor shows them the meanest, nastiest most shrewish woman this side of... more info
