Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Best movie ever!

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

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.

Some films are celebrated for turning up under other titles in several decades; for instance The Most Dangerous Game resurfaced as - amongst others - The Hounds Of Zaroff and Run For The Sun and in Sleeping Car To Trieste we have another take on Rome Express and Stamboul Train. In Rome Express the item stolen from Paris was a valuable painting, this time around it is a diary that, in the wrong hands could result in war. In both cases of course it's merely an excuse for the pursuers to encounter a Hollywood bomber crew on board the train. In this case Jean Kent and Albert Lieven, in pursuit of Alan Wheatley, encounter the likes of David Tomlinson Derick de Marney, Finlay Currie, Hugh Burden, Bonar Colleano just for openers. It's a pleasant enough time-waster if you have nothing better to do.

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.

Sleeping Car to Trieste is pretty much a standard post-war British spy thriller set on The Orient Express with all the usual sets and train mock-ups. Nothing too cerebral but light entertainment when you have nothing better to do.