Star power is perhaps less important in movies today than it was in decades past. Films are more often sold on a concept rather than a name and it is far less common for a star to have the ability to 'open' a film on their name power alone. The casting for Casablanca Express, a World War II set tale shot in Morocco and Italy demonstrates two types of name casting of the period. The first is the use of actors who had substantial careers but were perhaps past the point of being headliners themselves anymore. Glenn Ford at the age of 73 and Donald Pleasance at 70 are given substantial supporting roles that rely on their presence and the ability for their names to be used in print and related advertising. Ford had given very few acting performances in the previous decade, whilst Pleasance had been hugely busy in a large range of low budget features. The older audience would be familiar with the actors' work and be happy perhaps to see them again in a feature.The second form of name recognition used is to cast the offspring of known actors, in this case the sons of Sean Connery and Anthony Quinn, relying perhaps on curiosity value from the audience about whether they would be equivalent level stars to their parents. In this case neither has a great deal of charisma but their evident willingness to engage in complex stunt work un-doubled for the most part is impressive. The complex action sequences atop and around trains go a long way to adding to the conviction of the film.The plot is fairly perfunctory though with a non-cheat twist ending and the remote locations through which the train of the title travels are fairly evocative. Dialogue is at time unintentionally hilarious and extensive post-production dubbing appears to have occurred.I enjoyed my first viewing of Casablanca Express but did not feel it had sufficient depth or other items of interest that would support a repeat viewing.

Director Sergio Martino was one of the undisputed kings of the giallo film. In the early 70's he directed five classic examples of this fabulous Italian sub-genre. But, like the vast majority of his peers, he was essentially a director-for-hire and was given work in whatever genre was popular at the time. This meant that he also directed films in diverse genres, ranging from sex comedies to a notorious cannibal movie. By the late 80's the Italian genre film was in serious decline and it was at this point that Martino helmed Casablanca Express, a late entry in the Euro war film sub-genre. Set during World War II in Morocco, its plot centres on a train which secretly takes the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Casablanca for a war time conference with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The Axis powers get wind of this plan and set about attempting to kidnap Churchill. A British Special Forces agent is sent on a mission to sort this out.I was pretty sure that the whole idea of Churchill travelling to Casablanca must've been an alternate history conjured up for the purposes of a movie plot-line. But a little bit of research (i.e. Google) informed me that there was indeed such an event! So I have been educated a little by this movie at the very least. Admittedly, the whole story involving the train is a case of serious dramatic license but I see no point in quibbling about that. It is, on the whole, a pretty decent plot for the film to be fair and it gets us from A to B effectively enough. The action side of things is more okay rather than great though. The lead actor is Jason Connery who I knew mostly from the 80's TV series 'Robin of Sherwood', in truth he's not the most charismatic of actors and here is no different. He is, at best, passably convincing as a super soldier. In the background roles there are a trio of respected thespians in Glenn Ford, Donald Pleasence and Jean Sorel; as American, British and French generals, respectively. So, pretty decent acting personnel overall to be fair. On the whole, this turned out to be a better production than I expected. I mean, it is limited but it's not that bad either. The one area where it was genuinely diabolical was its soundtrack which comprised of horribly tinny music which was unfortunately common in some films of this time period and gives the impression of having been produced by a guy with an 80's keyboard with lots of 'special' settings mimicking various instruments. Aside from this though, I would say this is worth checking out if you enjoy World War II films and aren't too picky.

I can only guess some of these actors were looking for paychecks and they are the only ones who profit from this. Nothing is good ; the camera-work is poor, the script is poor, there is no closed captions, and the sound really sucks. you can almost see 20 foot booms with mics dangling from them, instead of mics on the actors. Alright, the scenery is OK. And this is proof that just because you have actors as parents doesn't mean you get any talent from the genes. This was one of the last movies for Glenn Ford, an iconic actor from the 40's and 50's. Even Donald Pleasence is in this, the same year he shot Halloween 5. Some of the chase scenes were overly long and not necessary to the story. Unnecessary nudity and "love scenes" used as filler.

It is difficult to find enough bad things to say about this movie. It is even more difficult to imagine why Glenn Ford and Donald Pleasance would agree to be in this movie. As far as realism and historical accuracy: Non-existent. The only way a person could find this movie realistic is if they just moved here from another planet.Here are just a few technical examples of the poor quality of this film:The U.S. Army personnel are wearing uniforms that are currently in use (issued in the early 1980s). The soldiers use helmet liners instead of complete helmets (liner and "iron pot"). The U.S. flags that are shown have 50 stars (instead of the 48-star flag which was in use from 1912 until 1960).I rated it two stars because unfortunately, I have seen worse movies.