L'énigme du Chicago Express

Charles McGraw plays edgy cop Walter Brown. His job is to protect a dead racketeer's wife, Mrs Neil (Marie Windsor) from the mob. She's a key witness in a grand jury probe, and also has a payoff list linking gang members to the LAPD. Most of the film's action takes place on board the train taking Brown and Neil to Los Angeles, where she will testify.In Mrs. Neil, played to perfection by Windsor, the queen of B movies, the tough talking, wise-cracking Brown meets his match. On the way to meet her, he glibly tells his partner, Gus Forbes that "She's the sixty cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Sticky poison under the gravy." When he and Forbes, both from Los Angeles, first meet her, she says, "How nice. How Los Angeles." Then looking Brown up and down, she snarls, "Sunburn wear off on the way?" My favorite wisecrack occurs after Brown has finally had enough of her wise remarks and lashes out, "You make me sick to my stomach." Her retaliation is a gem: "Well, use your own sink." Unlike the banter between Nick and Noira Charles of The Thin Man series, there's nothing the least sophisticated about the way Brown and Neil talk each other. Director Richard Fleischer uses inventive camera work, the sounds of the train rather than a music score, and the train's claustrophobic atomsphere to create and sustain tension. An RKO picture, The Narrow Margin is an unpretentious, taut low-budget thriller, a minor classic far superior to the 1990 Gene Hackman-Anne Archer remake.

After finally waking herself up, a mobsters wife decides to testify against him and his organisation. As the trial draws closer she is constantly under threat of being murdered before she can spill the beans. Tough detective Walter Brown and his partner Gus Forbes are assigned to escort her safely across country via a train from Chicago to Los Angeles, but nobody can be trusted, and the threat of death is around everyone on board this speeding train.

Yes it may well be a "B" movie, but as "B" movies go this has to rank as one of the finest exponents of that particular arc. With the film taking place almost entirely on board the train, the tension sapping and claustrophobic feel is perfectly executed by director Richard Fleischer. The plot twists and turns and throws up genuine moments of surprise that thrill instead of hinder, whilst the ending doesn't cop out by pandering to the normal requisite of witness protection thrillers.

Charles McGraw is great as Brown, putting the hard into hard boiled and Jacqueline White is very precious as Ann Sinclair. Truth is, is that all the cast work well within the confines of this tightly produced picture. It was a surprise hit for RKO, where made on a small budget of under a quarter of a million dollars, it turned out to be a very profitable "B" production for the company. It wowed audiences back in the 50s and it's testament to the film's worth that today, here in the modern age, it's still being sought out and praised by movie lovers of all ages. 8/10

Here's an overlooked classic that more than holds its own over five decades after its release. Two-fisted detective Charles McGraw must protect a crucial witness (Marie Windsor) on a train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. Since keeping a secret is hard, bad guys who aren't so keen on Windsor's testimony are also on board -- and will stop at nothing to silence her. Further complexities are added to an already tense situation when the hit men confuse another passenger as their target.

"The Narrow Margin" is known as a B movie, but you'd never know it from watching it. True, the film isn't flashy, but it does make the most out of everything it has. The story is original and full of twists, the suspense terrific and the acting memorable. With its creative take on what should be a simple story, and with its colorful characters and sharp direction, it's all more than a bit reminiscent of the master himself, Alfred Hitchcock. You won't regret picking this one up now that it's available on DVD.

This was the "original" and, like its re-make "Narrow Margin" (the "The" is missing), it is excellent. This is one of those rare cases in which the old and the new versions both are top-notch.

In fact, it's interesting to compare the two versions. In this film, there is a very unique twist as the end concerning the woman being brought to Los Angeles. It was clever.

That woman in this 1952 version also is played by perhaps the First Lady Of Noir, Marie Windsor. She had the best lines in the film and is outstanding at playing the tough-talking moll of this genre. (See Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" to fully appreciate more of Windsor's work.)

The film noir tough-guy male equivalent of her also stars in this film: Charles McGraw. Few guys ever looked and sounded better in noirs than McGraw. He and Windor were born to play in 'B' crime movies!

The short length of this film makes it a good one to watch anytime although, to be frank, if I could only own one of the two "Narrow Margin" films, I'd have to take the latter-day version with Gene Hackman and Anne Archer, but it would a tough decision. Both have a lot to offer.

The Narrow Margin is excellent. It's too bad more of our new directors have forgotten how to make a great film with a minimal budget, using instead inventive camera angles, good characters and dialog, and some surprises along the way. I really loved Marie Windsor as the mobster's wife who's going to LA to sing to the Grand Jury. She's one of the toughest broads I've ever seen! Charles McGraw does his standard tough cop role and turns in a performance that sets the standard by which all others are judged.

This is the original, and beats the heck out of the re-make.....