Verschwörung im Nachtexpress

"The Tall Target," about a plot to kill Lincoln before his inauguration, is a compact little film directed by Anthony Mann and starring Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson, and Ruby Dee. Powell plays John Kennedy, a detective and admirer of the future President who finds out about an assassination plot and hopes to stop it, although his written report seems to fall on blind eyes. On board a train, Kennedy finds the person he was to meet is dead, someone is impersonating him, and, from all the political talk, there are lots of suspects who hate Lincoln as the country gets ready for war.

Most of the action takes place on the train and the atmosphere and black and white cinematography neatly capture the period. The performances are all excellent, including that of Will Geer as the train conductor and Ruby Dee as a young slave whose mistress' brother (Thompson) is a prime suspect in the assassination plot. Twenty years earlier, Dick Powell was a boy tenor playing male ingénues opposite Ruby Keeler; in the '40s, he turned to tough detective type roles, and ultimately became a highly successful producer. He's very good in "The Tall Target" but a little too modern in manner and dialogue delivery. It's somewhat noticeable because the period is captured very well by the other actors.

This is a very good movie with a neat ending and based on a true incident. There was, by the way, a John Kennedy who was a former law enforcement officer who served in the Lincoln administration. Whether he was involved in this situation, I don't know. It's a wonderful story nonetheless.

Superbly directed and photographed, and very well acted by Dick Powell, Will Geer, and Adolph Menjou, this movie ranks as one of director Anthony Mann's best achievements. Not one of his trademark noirs, it still has the characteristic tense look and feel, while staking out its own claim to originality, capturing the mood of the country as it is about to explode into a bloodbath. Set on the eve of the Civil War, a New York police detective (Dick Powell) boards a southbound train in New York to foil a conspiracy to assassinate President elect Lincoln. The train setting provides an apt stage in which the passions of the day are played out, with Unionists and Secessionists armed to the teeth. Factually, the details are probably off, but the mood of the time seems to be fairly accurately portrayed.

While most everyone seems to know about the assassination of President Lincoln, this was just the last of quite a few plots to kill the man. In particular, getting Lincoln to Washington for the inauguration was problematic, as crowds were often hostile and bent on killing the man they blamed for the splitting up of the Union. In particular, in Baltimore, the President-elect needed to be spirited off the train quietly to avoid the hostile mobs. So, the premise of "The Tall Target" is very appropriate---as there was a lot of hatred and hostility towards the man during the war years.

John Kennedy (no, not THE John Kennedy but he's a guy played by Dick Powell) is a New York policeman who is frustrated, very frustrated. The inauguration of Abraham Lincoln is approaching and he insists that there is a plot to kill the man--however, his superiors don't take him seriously. So, he resigns from the force and boards a train headed to Washington. He's determined to do SOMETHING. Along the way, he meets up with several conspirators--though unfortunately no one believes him! And, when he captures the one of the conspirators, the local police want to arrest him instead! What is the man to do?! Aside from one small dumb scene (where Kennedy left his identification and gun in his coat at his seat--leading to serious complications), this is a bang-up film. While you know that Lincoln survived to serve as president, you still are on the edge of your seat--a sign that this is a very good action/adventure film. Tense, well-written and acted--this is well worth seeing.

Although the film is a work of fiction, The Tall Target is based in part on an actual incident that involved an attempt to assassinate President- elect Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington to assume the presidency in early 1861. A planned stop in Baltimore was canceled and Lincoln was spirited into Washington in the wee small hours of the morning with no kind of fanfare or publicity, as he put it, 'like a thief in the night'.

Anthony Mann directed this 19th century noir type film starring Dick Powell as a New York police sergeant who gets wind of a plot to murder Lincoln in Baltimore. After he confides his suspicions to colleague Regis Toomey, Toomey winds up dead and Powell's more convinced than ever of the rightness of his belief. He boards the train that Lincoln is scheduled to board in Baltimore on to warn him, but Powell's got a lot of people on that train ready to do him in and he doesn't know who to trust.

The Tall Target is very similar to Mann's other classic Winchester 73 in the tautness of the direction and script. There isn't one wasted frame of film in The Tall Target and the suspense is kept throughout, even though history tells us Lincoln dodged a bullet that day. Mann assembled a very strong supporting cast for Powell that includes Adolphe Menjou as a militia colonel called to the colors, Leif Erickson as a Bowery tough, Will Geer as an officious conductor, Marshall Thompson as a southern hothead and resigned West Point cadet and his sister Paula Raymond.

Best performance in the film though is that of young Ruby Dee who plays a slave to Thompson and Raymond traveling with them. She proves to be the only real friend Powell has on the train. It's a quiet understated performance of dignity and strength.

By the way in case any of you are wondering why she doesn't just run away and claim her freedom, a couple of things stops her. The Dred Scott decision for one which obliterated the Missouri Compromise of 1820 with the northern free and southerns slave states and the new Fugitive Slave Law from the 1850 Compromise. However Dee knows that freedom is coming her way and soon.

The Tall Target is one excellent film, one of the best from Dick Powell when he decided to stop making musicals. Catch it absolutely.

In 1861, New York detective John Kennedy (Dick Powell) is convinced there's a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln but no one seems to believe him. So he resigns from the force and takes the train to Baltimore, determined to prevent the assassination.

In my opinion, this is Dick Powell's last great screen role. He made a few more movies before finishing his career out as a director and doing some minor TV work. He's very good here, as usual. Strong support from Adolphe Menjou, Will Geer, Leif Erickson, and Ruby Dee. It's a gripping period thriller from Anthony Mann that looks like a film noir, thanks to Paul Vogel's fine cinematography. Plus, it's a train movie and those are always fun.

There's a lot in this movie for history buffs to chew on. A guy named John Kennedy trying to prevent a presidential assassination in a film made over a decade before President Kennedy was killed is certainly interesting. The plot is loosely based on the 1861 Baltimore Plot, which resulted in one of Lincoln's earliest public relations nightmares because he was accused of cowardly sneaking into the city for fear of assassins. Times have certainly changed. Anyway you should definitely read up on that as it's pretty fascinating, especially considering what happened to him four years later.