Criterion Collection: Night Train to Munich [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Although "Night Train" isn't quite up to the standard of the original version of "The Lady Vanishes" (more derring do than "who done what to who?") it is still one of the best of the "Brave Britons Outsmarting Swinish Foreigners" films of the period.

It benefits from the presence of Margaret Lockwood, who plays her part with the same conviction that she showed in "The Lady Vanishes"; Rex Harrison, as the dashing spy; and the ultra-British Charters and Caldicott, again acting with self-effacing bravery in the face of the enemy as they desperately try to get home in time to see a cricket match.

For some people this kind of film may seem hopelessly stereotyped and old-fashioned. But if you tend to enjoy British films of the 1940s, and especially if you've enjoyed "The Lady Vanishes", this is an absolute "must".

Now rarely revived and often dismissed as a bit of derivative Lady Vanishment when it is - it not only stars Margaret Lockwood but even includes Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the cricket-mad Charters and Caldicott and shares the same screenwriters - it's not too hard to see why Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich was such a big hit in the still-free world in 1940. It's unashamedly a propaganda picture, but one with wit, a decent plot and a good cast even if it doesn't have Hitchcock's gift for suspense. Having escaped from a concentration camp with Czech teacher Paul Henreid (still billed as Pal Von Hernreid) to be reunited with her refugee scientist father, Lockwood's saviour turns out to be a Nazi spy sent to arrange her escape so they can kidnap the old man and get his new armour-plating formula. So, having fallen down on the job once, Rex Harrison's secret service man (first seen working his cover as a seaside song peddler) decides to pop over to Germany to kidnap him back before war can be declared. A few bluffs and romantic masquerades later they're on the train of the title, along with Charters and Caldicott and Henreid's increasingly suspicious spy, cueing the expected but still enjoyable complications en route to a cable car climax that sees Rex Harrison get a 29-year head start on Richard Burton in the jumping-from-cablecar-to-cablecar stakes...

There's not a great deal that's unexpected here, but it plays out as a pleasing comedy thriller that ticks all the right boxes, The Lady Vanishes screenwriters Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat no longer having to pretend their story isn't set in Germany and having as much fun taking pot shots at Harrison's own ego as the subtle differences between saying "This is a fine country to live in" and "This is a FINE country to live in" to a Gestapo man (as Raymond Huntley's Nazi bureaucrat notes to himself, the proper emphasis is "This is a bloody awful country to live in."). Nor do they take their propaganda duties with much more than a pinch of salt: while they make jokes about Mein Kampf being given to married couples in Germany ("I don't think it's that sort of book, old man"), they'll also follow Lockwood's relief at being in Britain where people are free to say and think what they like with an irritable mother immediately smacking her unruly child for doing just that! It's never particularly thrilling and there's never any doubt that right will triumph over Nazi might, but it's too entertaining a journey to complain - and there's a great unbilled bit-part from Irene Handl as a bossy German station mistress that's as fine a bit of scene-stealing as you're likely to see. Shame Criterion's Region 1 NTSC DVD couldn't come up with more than a 28-minute discussion of the film's background and production between film historians Peter Evans and Bruce Babington and the customary booklet, though, but the print at least is superb

Harrison and Lockwood are very good, as is Paul Henreid with his name mis-spelt in the credits. The film is reminiscent of THE LADY VANISHES but not quite as good. Still, super fun with Harrison in top form and with a couple of clever twists that make it a worthwhile watch. The major downside is that copy quality is sub-standard.