Rom Express

Well-to-do people, all with their own secrets get aboard THE ROME EXPRESS, from a scenario by Sidney Gilliat.

One of the issues of looking at a movie that is clearly the precursor to another, well regarded movie, is that it invites invidious comparisons. It's a phenomenon I call "the end of history" and it reflects our bias that everyone and everything that happened before us is just leading up to our own magnificence, while everything after us will be a severe let-down. This movie was not made as a trial run for Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES, despite Gilliat, producer Michael Balcon and the presence of several plot elements -- including a couple who are cheating on their spouses -- that were later used in the more famous movie. If anything, the later movie was probably conceived as a remake.

Looking at this movie on its own merits, we can recognize it as a sparkling cast -- including Finlay Currie as an American, Cedric Hardwicke, Esther Ralson, Hugh Williams and the always brilliant Conrad Veidt as a mysterious threat. It is a skillful blending of comedy and thrills by director Walter Forde, who would return to the theme with 1941's THE MAIL TRAIN. Yes, Hitchcock and others would do it better; they had the model in this movie -- which is vastly entertaining on its own.

Rome Express is a Gaumont British production which can be seen as a prototype for future thrillers than would be set entirely on trains. In particular it makes one think of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes which is not too surprising since both films have the same screenwriter, Sidney Gilliat (who would later be director of Green for Danger and the excellent State Secret).

Aside from the train setting, however, in which various passengers intermingle with one another, with crime and murder to be a part of the course of this trip, this film has, like the later Hitchcock film, a lightness in tone that adds to its pleasure. One seriously has to wonder, in fact, if the future Sir Alfred didn't see this film before he directed his own variation on it.

As directed by Walter Forde, Rome Express moves with the same speed as the express train on which the story is set, the main plot involving a stolen Van Dyke painting hidden in a briefcase and two partners of the thief, one of them very deadly, indeed, in search of the now frightened man who decided to abscond with the painting on his own.

The largely British cast is fine, including Joan Barry (a Hitchcock leading lady around this time in Rich and Strange) and, particularly effective, Donald Calthrop, whom Hitchcock buffs may recall as the blackmailer in Blackmail, Alfred's first talkie. In this film he's the man with the hidden Van Dyke.

Cedric Hardwicke also scores very well here as a smug, penny pinching millionaire forever castigating his cowering manservant for some minor misdeed. Esther Ralston, a very attractive silent film star whose talkie career would never reach the same heights as her silent one, is quite winning in the role of a movie star on board the train who becomes accidentally mixed up with the art thieves.

Saving the best for last is Conrad Veidt, in great form here, as the more sinister of the two art thieves searching for the passenger (Calthrop) who has the painting. Veidt brings an intelligence and polished flair to his performance. Ruthless as he is when he has a man cornered, he is also an elegant scoundrel who presents a smiling, affable facade to those around him.

Veidt is highly effective in his role, both attractive and deadly as a cobra. If anyone in this film exudes star presence it is definitely the German actor probably best remembered today for his performance as Major Strasser in Casablanca.

If you're into thrillers, particularly those set aboard trains, try seeking this film out. You should be more than satisfied.

This is the great granddaddy of train portmanteau thrillers and Walter Forde,like Hitchcock, had a thing for trains - he even remade his now lost 1931 "The Ghost Train" and became a serious leading British Director. The production of Rome Express opened the large new Lime Grove(Gainsborough)studios in W London using two huge sets to accommodate both terminii & the impressive express. Conrad Veidt was a comparative newcomer to London from Germany escaping a future under the Nazis and stayed to make a number of other acclaimed 30s films like "Jew Suss" "Passing of the Third Floor Back" "Dark Journey" & "Under The Red Robe" until ending up at Denham with the Kordas. He loved Britain and loathed Hitler but this didn't stop his 40s performances as an assortment of nazi officials - "Escape" "Spy In Black" and,of course,"Casablanca". The popular Scottish actor,Finlay Currie played the same part in this and its almost shot-for-shot remake 15 years later at 70.He was probably best known as the convict,Magwitch, in the superb 1946 remake of "Great Expectations".

"Rome Express" is a familiar sort of film...a murder mystery aboard a train going from Paris to Rome. And, like these sorts of films, there is a cast of many folks who are passengers on this journey.

It all begins with the theft of a valuable Van Dyck painting. Someone aboard likely has the painting. However, the killings don't start until much later...when you realize that the man with the painting has cheated his partners and they will stop at NOTHING to get that painting.

The best reason to watch this movie is to watch Conrad Veidt. This German actor is chilling and simply superb here as the baddest of the bad guys in the movie. Apart from that, there are a few decent performances here and there, though Gordon Harker's performance as a really annoying guy is perhaps too good! You can certainly see why the other folks aboard find him tiresome!! Overall, a very good film that is worth your time.

I always liked train movies, so I bothered to watch this one, on French TV. It was also an occasion to see Conrad Veidt, a very good actor, last seen in CASABLANCA. During the watching, I suddenly remembered the name of Bonar Colleano, the British-American star of the past-war era. From IMDB, I learned that he starred in another train movie, SLEEPING CAR TO TRIESTE (1948), and, to my great amazement, I discovered that the later was a remake of the former! sixteen years after... harrycarasso, Paris