Berlin Express

Set in a post WW-2 Germany, "Berlin Express" is a quite interesting thriller directed by Jacques Tourneur. The story is basically about a group of people each of whom representing Russian, French, American and British forces who are united in trying to solve an assassination attempt made by Nazi underground group on a Professor Bernhardt, one of the former liders of German Resistance to Nazis and now a chairman of a commission for post-war unification of Germany.

"Berlin Express" is particularly interesting for it's exteriors shot in 1947 on real locations with special permission from Allied forces, showing destroyed by bombings Frankfurt and Berlin. 7/10

BERLIN EXPRESS is a post-war thriller directed to the hilt by Jacques Tourneur, who adds plenty of icy atmosphere to the production. It also has one of the best locations I've seen in a film: the real-life bombed-out ruins of Frankfurt, which provide a fitting backdrop to a tale of intrigue, scandal, and murder.

Much of the film is set on a train, as various characters interact and attempt to do battle with some Nazis who don't let the small matter of losing the war stop them. When a leading scientist is kidnapped, it takes an American investigator to track down the criminal gang and exact some justice.

Cast-wise, this is a film that benefits from some seasoned performers like Robert Ryan and Paul Lukas in key roles, but really it's a story where the cinematography wins out. There are some expertly-directed set-pieces here, particularly the climactic stuff in the bombed-out brewery, alongside plenty of the good stuff - i.e. suspense and a sense of danger - that you expect from a thriller. Check it out.

This film is about the only one I can recall that deals with the anti-West resistance that the US and its allies received from the conquered Germans after WWII. Apart from this movie, you'd think that ALL the Germans easily adapted to their new rule, while in reality there were murders and scattered resistance for several years in an effort by ex-Nazis to destabilize the peace. For historical reasons alone, it is an important movie. Robert Ryan plays our hero who finds out about a Nazi murder plot and, with the help of a multinational team, he goes to action. I think that having help from the Russians, French and British is interesting, but highly improbable and seemed like a bit of a cliché, but nevertheless it's a great film and well wroth seeing.

Most everyone has seen film of the atomic leveling of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. However, this revealing flick shows the lesser seen ravages of conventional bombing of WWII Germany, specifically Frankfurt and Berlin. Only jaggedly grim foundations are left standing, except for the lavish Siemens corporate complex which remains perfectly intact. I expect there's an interesting backstory to that. Anyway, I gather this was the first movie to show Germany's urban destruction, which, all things considered, stands as the movie's centerpiece.

Nonetheless, the screenplay weaves an interesting post-war thread into the compelling visuals. Seems the influential Dr. Bernhardt is trying to bring the four occupying powers (U.S., Britain, France, and Soviet Union) into a unifying compact that will prevent their breakup into rivals and also make a resurgence of German militarism more difficult. (However, the nature of the German resistance, whether Neo-Nazi or otherwise, is never specified.) The trouble is elements of that German resistance are trying to eliminate the Doctor and his plans for allied unity. It seems that keeping those occupying powers separate will make a German resurgence easier. Thus protecting Dr. Bernhardt becomes an allied priority. The movie's suspense then becomes figuring out which of the cast members are actually German resistance operatives.

If there is such a thing as noir intrigue, RKO has fashioned it. Most of the activity takes place in the shadows of railway cars and dour rooms along with twilight chases through the urban rubble. But then this is expert noir director Tourneur along with art and set direction from the talented D'Agostino and Silvera. As a result, the plot and visuals complement one another compellingly. Then too, as a revealing period fact, we find out how important cigarettes were when no common money exists.

This 1947 production reflects a post-war period prior to the onset of the uncompromising Cold War between the Soviets and the U.S. Thus the film's Soviet officer is treated in sympathetic fashion totally unlike the many movie and TV caricatures that would follow. For a Cold War product like myself, that takes some real getting used to. Too bad the movie's hopeful note of European, American, and a Soviet compact was not borne out in practice.

Anyway, it's an unusual and provocative film, certainly deserving of more recognition and less obscurity than what it's gotten. So don't pass it up.

On a surface level this is a kind of benevolent THIRD MAN, as a group of international comrades, most prominently a naive American, try to root out sinister Germans and a betraying friend in the rubbles of post-war Europe. The script is a model of civic decency, as it dramatises the lingering dangers facing Europe after the war, but offering a narrative of co-operation and hope.

Director Tourneur, however, had only just directed the beautifully bleak OUT OF THE PAST, and this film is full of a blackness overwhelming good intentions, where the frightening contingencies of history and inexplicable darkness of man are not so easily swept aside. His mastery of space and lighting, his disturbing compositions and vigorous editing are an eternal pleasure not to be enjoyed again until Scorcese's glory days.