The movie was made in Britain in 1940 and takes place in 1939, when Hitler's forces moved into Czechoslovakia. In Prague, there is an industrial scientist with a possible revolutionary method of armor plate whom the Nazis want to work for them, and British agents smuggle him out, but leave his daughter behind. She is taken to a concentration camp (when they were still prisons rather than centers of genocide) and escapes with another inmate and gets to Britain to reunite with her father. Unfortunately German agents are at work in Britain, and they are forced back to Germany. A British agent poses as a German army officer to try to get them back out.The movie is effective in showing the harshness and danger of the Nazi regime with relative subtlety (shown by the scenes of people in trouble for saying the wrong things), but it shows the Gestapo as being a little too careless and inept, and the scene with the mountain tram cars being rather unconvincing. Still entertaining as a period piece.

Night Train to Munich (1940)This British movie was made in 1940 a year after German and Britain began WWII. It is set in the late summer of 1939, just as the declaration of war was on the horizon. And while the filming and post-production is going on, London is being bombed by the Nazi air force. (The film was released in December, several months after the first raids.)The most memorable lead is Rex Harrison playing an agent and double agent, falling in love with and saving the scientist's daughter (Margaret Lockwood) as well as the scientist himself (while he's at it). And then as a competing suitor, the dubiously aligned German officer played by Paul Henreid, who a year later would play a kind of counterpoint in the American Nazi film, "Casablanca."Director Carol Reed marshals all these forces and makes a surprisingly terrific movie. It's fast, smart, fanciful, and patriotic. It's also really really funny, and the more you catch the British humor the more you'll be glad--at times it's relentless even as its subtle. The little barbs against the Germans, both as German stereotypes and as Nazi buffoons, is highly calculated. The British come off as daring and dashing, even the bumbling travelers rise to the occasion. It's often been commented that Harrison makes a very fit precursor to James Bond, and there must be a backwards truth to that because Ian Fleming (who invented Bond) was a WWII British OSS worker. Art imitating life. Imitating art.And yes, this is an homage and reference (if not sequel) to Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes," including use of the same writers, the same kind of comic suspense, the same leading actress, and even two comic side characters from one train to the other. Reed even acknowledged the connections, as if he could deny them, and wanted no doubt to coattail some of the movies huge success.It taints a movie to call it propaganda, so I won't. It's not, really. What it does (just as "Casablanca" does) is strike one up for the good guys. You end the movie thinking the British might just win this thing. And at the time that wasn't a foregone conclusion--London was only sinking further into the terror of the Blitz. Of course, we know that British resolve and resourcefulness won the day, with a little outside help, and this is part of exactly that.Great stuff.

Just as Germany invades the Sudatenland, Czech engineer Axel Bomasch fearing he may have to work for the Nazi cause, flees to England, being separated from his daughter Anna (Margaret Lockwood) on the way. Anna is imprisoned in a concentration camp where she befriends Czech nationalist Karl Marsen (Paul Henreid), he helps her make her escape and flees with her to England where they meet up with her father. Almost immediately they are hoodwinked by German agents posing as British naval officers and are brought back to Germany where Bomasch's knowledge on armour plating will be used for the imminent war. A fearless Gus Bennett (Rex Harrison) endeavours to travel to Germany in disguise to recapture the Domasch's in a daring raid.After the success of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes(1938), screenplay writers Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder returned to very similar ground with Night Train to Munich, again we have Nazi's and spies in pre-war Germany, again we are on a perilous train journey and again Margaret Lockwood is the lead and we also have Naunton Wayne as Caldicott, Basil Radford as Charters reprising their roles as the amiable Cricket loving buffoons. Its not quite as polished as Hitch's film and it is a little heavy on the propaganda, Germans being dour martyrs to the cause, all the Brits being, chirpy "Mornin Govnor" types, but there's still plenty to enjoy, Rex Harrison's cocky Gus Bennett, in a series of disguises and treating us to some seaside numbers, Naunton and Wayne are comedic top form, the train scenes also have plenty of tension as we race to a heart stopping climax on a cable car.

Carol Reed is a truly wonderful director, his CV boasts the likes of The Third Man, Oliver and Odd Man Out, all great films for sure, which only makes it more infuriating that a gem like Night Train To Munich is incredibly hard to get hold of. I have only managed to catch it myself because of the unearthing of VHS tapes long thought to have been lost years ago, and it's just like finding hidden treasure I tell you! Based on a story by Gordon Wellesley, and scripted by the adroitly talented teaming of Sydney Gilliat/Frank Launder, Night Train To Munich is a lesson in how to not over blow your subject, all the sequences flow without boring the viewer, with Reed astutely approaching the material with subtlety instead of blunderbuss bluster.Another highlight of the movie to me is that it could have so easily been a propaganda bore, the Germans being the devil incarnate, but here it feels that an equality of characterisations was the order of the day. Something that many other genre pieces lost sight of further down the line. Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood and Paul Henreid are all excellent here, whilst wonderful comedic relief comes courtesy of Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford's English cricketers {fans of The Lady Vanishes will identify right away}. Although this picture is script driven above all else, the action sequences are a joy to behold, with the final third of the picture an unadulterated pleasure, spies and stooges, plants and treachery, oh it's all here folks, enjoy, if you can get a good print of it! 9/10