Despite finding Valley of Hell and Carnival of Sinners to be extraordinary films by his dad Maurice,I for some reason have never got round to seeing a title from Jacques Tourneur.Taking a look at the TV listings,I was pleased to find that the BBC were doing a Jacques Tourneur double bill,which led to me getting on the express.The plot:Going on the Express train to Berlin,the passengers find themselves having to mix with other reps of nations occupying Germany. Mistrusting him due to him never coming out of his carriage,the group are surprised to find out that potential peace maker Dr. Bernhardt.Despite their side having recently lost,a secret Nazi blows up Bernhardt's carriage. Pushing for answers, Robert Lindley,finds out that the man was an impostor,and that Bernhardt and his secretary Lucienne were pretending to be fellow passengers. Believing that he has escaped the Nazi assassins, Bernhardt crosses paths with old friend Walther,who reveals to Bernhardt that he has not gotten off the tracks.View on the film:For the opening 30 minutes,director Jacques Tourneur & cinematographer Lucien Ballard (aka:the-then Mr Merle Oberon ) intercut their moody Noir espionage with startling footage of Berlin's "Russia zone." Given the unique chance of being the first Hollywood production shot in post-war Germany and the first movie to be allowed to film in Russia's "zone" Tourneur sadly lets the chance slip out of frame.Going for a tell and show approach, Tourneur clips the Film Noir anxiety by layering Paul Stewart's narration on thick,which does not add a psychological depth to what is being shown,but just describes the images!Stopping the narration once everyone is gathered, Tourneur walks in the shadows of war-torn Berlin and Frankfurt ,casting the shadows from the destroyed buildings down on the group attempting to rid the final Nazi gasps. Dancing in the underworld of the cities in seedy nightclubs, Tourneur explores every corner with sharp tracking shoots that follow Walther sinking into the post-WWII darkness. Calling out a sincere message of unity and understanding between the occupying nations,the screenplay by Harold Medford and Curt Siodmak avoid the message becoming sickly sweet, by placing it in a gang on a mission Film Noir. Brilliantly expressing the abrasive relationship between the occupying nations allegorically on the train, the writers whip up a Film Noir storm,as Dr. Bernhardt starts to regret giving lifelong friend Walther his trust.Although carrying a poor French accent, Merle Oberon gives a sparkling performance as Lucienne,who is given an enticing flirting side by Oberon,which mask her quick-witted Femme Fatale skills.Joined by a superb support cast that include Charles McGraw and a worn-down Reinhold Schünzel as Walther, Robert Ryan gives a great, chiselled performance as Lindley. Initially being firm- handed with his opinions,Ryan wonderfully brings an ease to Lindley,as he realises that he has to work with others to keep the Berlin Express on track.

Love international intrigue movies which take place on moving trains, where the passengers work for different countries and no one is what, or who, they seem. Even better, someone gets murdered on said train and everyone becomes a suspect. That's the way "Berlin Express" begins, and matters become curiouser from there on.On arrival at a Berlin train station a kidnapping takes place, and the principal characters - American, English, Russian, German and French - decide to form an ad hoc posse and try to find the missing German humanitarian who is an important person enroute to an important conference (wouldn't be much point if there were no important aspects involved). From here the story takes off, as the 5 split up and comb Berlin in search of the missing German. The story is absorbing and holds the interest right up to the end, as the group encounters obstacles and dead ends as well as several dangerous incidents. The hero is Robert Ryan (American), paired off with Merle Oberon (German) in the search, but there are no love scenes - strictly business. The other two are Robert Coote (English) and Roman Toporow (Russian), with Charles Korvin (German) tagging along with both groups. I thought the alliance and willingness of the 5 to find the missing German seemed forced and too convenient to the plot. They all said they had urgent business in Berlin, but which fell by the wayside in their eagerness to join the search, particularly the Russian, an army Lieutenant who said he would be 'disciplined' when he finally reports to his superior (think gulag). But there are actual scenes of bomb-scarred Berlin and Frankfurt taken just after the war which add authenticity to the film, and with an excellent storyline and direction by Jacques Tourneur the movie can stand on its own as a quintessential spy picture.

A young Robert Ryan is one of a multi-national collection of characters on a train bound for Berlin where they are due to hear an address by a Konrad Adanauer style politician who is endeavouring to oversee the peaceful unification of a defeated Germany in the wake of WWII. On board the train, this disparate group of strangers, which includes the politician's secretary, a British diplomat, a Frenchman and a Russian soldier, witness what they believe to be the assassination of the politician, although they later discover that he was actually a double used to divert attention away from the real peacemaker. However, the real politician is then kidnapped by a group of Nazis intent on resurrecting the Third Reich.Berlin Express is a solid enough thriller which clearly had loftier aspirations than most mainstream thrillers, and is considerably enhanced by some location footage of war-blasted Frankfurt that adds real atmosphere to the tale. The film attempts to underline the differences between the various nationalities while simultaneously trying to emphasise the importance of the nations they represent working together to find an acceptable solution to what was clearly a delicate situation at the time. This was before the Russians zoned off their tranche of the country to claim it for Communism, and it's clear that there's a little uncertainty about how to treat their representative – a somewhat stereotypically humourless young soldier – at a time when Russia was just beginning to be perceived as the next potential threat by US politicians. 'Perhaps you should try to understand us,' Ryan's character gently admonishes the young Russian at the end of the film – words that ring particularly hollowly in the light of the hysteria which would soon grip Hollywood.Politics aside, the film provides decent entertainment. Merle Oberon fails to disguise her heady exoticism in her role as a German, but we'll forgive her that simply because she has such beguiling cheek bones. Ryan is handsome and tall – and effortlessly superior to all those around him as his unlikely comrades pretty much stand back and allow him to sort things out. There's one effective sequence in which a fatally wounded spy dressed as a clown (long story) scrambles across the dusty rubble of Frankfurt's ruins, hotly pursued by a couple of Nazi thugs. He eludes them, only to fall, dying, at our hero's feet, just enough breath left in him to whisper a key piece of information. Good stuff.

In the aftermath of World War II, American, British and Russian forces are vying for political control of Germany. When a German academic with a plan for unification is due to address a conference, there are some elements who do not wish him to attend …This film is a bit of a curio, a sort of uneasy mix of documentary and narrative thriller. It feels a little like Murder On The Orient Express as we try to figure out who's after Dr Bernhardt, but it's really much more about the mistrust and opportunism which existed in Germany in the late forties. There are amazing shots of bombed-out Frankfurt and Berlin literally blown to rubble, everywhere are people hawking what few possessions they have in order to get by, and the only real currency is cigarettes. The British-American alliance is uneasy, neither trust the Russians and all are worried about a German resurgence; none can bury the past, or agree on the future. It's perceptive, thought-provoking stuff, and it accurately foresees not only the Communist annexing of the fifties, but also the unification of the nineties. It was made by a terrific cosmopolitan group - a gifted French/American director, a great German writer (Curt Siodmak, who, along with his brother Robert, made some of the best films of the forties) and a fine international cast. The plethora of nations is amusingly summed up at the start when all the men hit on Oberon and she fobs them all off in different languages. The thriller elements of the plot don't always work so well but the characters are rich and intriguing, and whilst the extensive narration is off-putting it's there for a purpose. A small but profound anti-war film, made at a pivotal moment in military history when politicians were only concerned with their spoils.