Sleeping Car to Trieste

I am a person who rarely likes remakes...that is, unless there is something horrible about the original and the remake takes care to correct this. In the case of "Sleeping Car to Trieste", it's a remake of "Rome Express" though I prefer the original and think the remake, though good, is unnecessary.

Three spies manage to steal a diary that might provoke a war (how exactly you never know). But one of the spies is greedy and disappears with the diary. He takes a ride on the Orient Express but doesn't realize that his angry partners are also aboard! Not surprisingly, the end result is pretty bloody.

This film is good...and if you haven't seen the original it should be a satisfying movie. However, it's also a bit uneven and much of the early portion on the train drags a bit. Fortunately, it does pick up and WHAT AN EXCITING ENDING! Well worth seeing and not bad at all.

As an American, I am always interested to see how Americans are portrayed in European films, particularly films made prior to WWII and in the years immediately following it.

The American in this film is portrayed as a vulgar contrast to the more sophisticated Europeans on board the train. He is a boozing, whistling, skirt-chasing Italian-American GI with a New York accent. (Why are they always from New York?) He is contrasted with the British passengers in two notable ways: First, his passion for the fairer sex is more overt and he comes across as wolfish in his pursuit of the young women in the film. This is contrasted with the discrete way in which the adulterous British couple on board the train are conducting their affair. When the two young French woman spurn his attempts to have a drinking party with them in their sleeping compartment, one says to him "We no longer wish to be liberated!" or words to that effect. This is a revealing statement about how the American military presence in postwar Europe was wearing thin the patience of Europeans.

Second, the magazines this American GI reads are prominently displayed so as to ensure that the audience can see them. They are the standard popular American mediocrities of the day: Saturday Evening Post, Life Magazine, etc. This is contrasted with the more scholarly (albeit boring) readings of bird-watching Britisher sharing his compartment.

Overall, the American in this film is the stereotypical boorish American so common in European films of this era. His portrayal, however, is not worse than Hollywood's stereotypes of Europeans.

Please note that this is not a criticism, but rather an observation. Americans are not singled out for criticism; the film traffics in several stereotypes (the cheapness of Scotchmen, for example) and does so mainly in a vein of comedic irony. Even the British get their own send-ups in this film.

This a delightful detective thriller, made in the inimitable British post-war manner. The cast is comprised of more than a dozen unusual characters who have taken the Orient Express to Trieste. A few of them are innocent and charming, but most of them are law-breakers on one level or another, their crimes ranging from evading customs duties to adultery, theft, assault, and murder.

The plot concerns a stolen diary, but the real action is trying to figure out who is in whose compartment at any given time, because as the police move in on the murderer, the matter of timing and alibis becomes of paramount importance.

The documentary shots of the train itself are exemplary. If you are a train buff, you will greatly enjoy this crude, lumbering, noisy hunk of iron, a giant boiler on wheels, barreling down the tracks as the people inside change compartments, eat, drink, and plot their petty and grand crimes.

I believe this is a remake of the film Rome Express.

In the beginning of this film, we see Zerta (Albert Lieven), a foreign agent, steal something from the Paris Embassy. He then throws it out the window to the waiting Karl. Valya (Jean Kent) is also at the embassy and an accomplice. They are to meet Karl the next day, but he stands them up. Realizing he is going to sell whatever it is for more money, they take off attempting to find him.

They find out that he is on a train headed for Zagreb. That's when the fun begins. Karl is upset to find that he does not have his own berth, which he has to have in order to a) stay hidden; and b) hide what he stole.

There are a bunch of characters involved - a couple secretly committing adultery, a friend of the man part of the couple (David Tomlinson) who wants to play cards and drink; a wealthy snobbish man (Finlay Currie) and his harried assistant; a bird watcher who won't shut up; two French girls who take advantage of an American soldier to avoid customs; the chef, who has to listen to an amateur cook that won't shut up.

Eventually we learn that the object is a diary that, if published, could start another war. Karl finally manages to get a berth alone, only to be moved from it after he's hidden the diary. The adulterous man would like his girlfriend to come to his berth, but he's stuck with someone else unexpectedly in his berth.

Sooner or later, they all play their part in retrieval of the diary.

Entertaining post-war film, well-directed.

Sleeping Car is a remake of the very good 1932 Rome Express with Conrad Veidt providing a much more sinister and intense Zurta in that one than Albert Lieven does in this remake - to his credit, though, Lieven does exude a debonair, charming sliminess, and I like both actors' widely different takes on the role.

Lieven is actually better suited to the role of Zurta than Veidt would have been, since the tone of Sleeping Car is lighter, despite the biting satire overall. Rome Express, while absorbing, is by comparison somewhat flat and humorless. The action and dialogue in both are crisp, fast-paced without being frenzied; the subplots in Sleeping Car are more entertaining.

Scottish actor Finlay Currie is in both. He's a fast-talking American show business promoter in Rome Express, and an overbearing author in the Trieste version. Urbane actor Paul Dupuis is more satisfying as the detective Jolif in Trieste. He has classier, funnier lines, and comes across as a three-dimensional sophisticate. In Rome Express, the role is a dull mish- mash attempted by Frank Vosper.

Not to be missed is the fun performance by always-watchable Jean Kent, in full control of her role.

Overall, Trieste corrects some of Rome's plot weaknesses, as well as adding life and humor, If you have a chance, watch both of them. They're both enjoyable.