Il treno del ritorno

Married New York City lawyer with Southern roots returns to his hometown in Georgia strictly on business, managing to dig up secrets from the past as well as rekindling a distant romance. Despite some flashbacks near the beginning, a lean and straightforward adaptation of Hamilton Basso's book (its inelegant title changed to "Secret Interlude" overseas). The film manages to skirt overwrought melodrama with help from a literate screenplay by Philip Dunne, who also directed. However, with themes of interracial relations and extra-marital intimacy, the picture really shouldn't be so plodding. The performers are well-cast (and their divergent accents aren't a big distraction), but the blaring music by Elmer Bernstein seeks out more intensity on the screen than what we're getting, especially during the romantic clinches. Handsome film is well-produced, yet the plot is merely routine. ** from ****

I saw this movie when I was 11 years old. It was a love story that has never left me. When Dana Wynter says, "Oh Sonny, I loved you so," I just cried and cried. I felt then, I would have some sort of sadness in my love life and later on, I did!

Lush soap opera with many signatures of the big budget 50's studio era, beautiful locations and production design, Cinemascope and an eye for detail..there's a scene where Egan pulls up beside a house and the colors of his suit, car interior & exterior and house all compliment each other and and his complexion and he's in a ghetto! Where it misses is in the casting of the leading man.

Richard Egan was a reliable journeyman actor but he wasn't strong enough to carry this sort of film. His character, who to put it mildly has many conflicts, required the intensity of a Richard Burton or the movie star charisma of a Rock Hudson to make him work, Egan possesses neither. Dana Wynter, Cameron Mitchell and Marjorie Rambeau all provide the requisite punch to their characters but with Egan's bland reliability failing to give them a spark to ignite off of the film never pulls the audience in.

It's not an awful film just empty.

In 1955 when this early CinemaScope film was released and came to the Tucson Fox Theater, I was thirteen years old and I recall vividly sitting entranced in the large movie house utterly captivated by Richard Egan and Dana Wynter, who have to be one of the most stunning couples ever to grace the silver screen. Talk about perfect casting. The director, John Dunne, certainly had an eye for putting together the perfect male/female combo, with Egan's rugged tanned looks and Wynter's porcelain skin and breathtaking beauty, what's not to like! The story took backseat to the CinemaScope spectacle of Egan and Wynter and although not a complete disaster, the story, thankfully, never got in the way of Egan and Wynter. But it was interesting enough to keep me going and the nice thing about having the DVD is that I could take breaks which actually helped make the film move a bit more quickly.

I found this movie in the UK. It is UK named "Secret Interlude" I have ordered it in 8MM and will transpose to CD. This is a movie made in Brunswick, Georgia with Richard Egan. My Father was in the movie and it is the only real live memory of my Dad. He passed when I was a baby.

I cannot wait to get it, it has scenes from St. Simons Island, GA and Jekyll Island, GA, Brunswick, GA. Also featuring the old Oglethorpe Hotel Built in 1888 and destroyed in 1959.

Anyone interested, email me.......ED Floyd