It is hard for me to believe that this film is now 51 years old. It seems like only yesterday that i stumbled on this gem in my first flush of cinema going youth. Based on a popular book of the era, this is world war 2 as adventure, and not in any way a recreation of events. Do not confuse this action escape yarn with the John Frankenheimer/Burt Lancaster drama The Train, that excellent movie is a very different animal. In Mark Rodson's Von Ryan's Express the emphasis is on entertaining high adventure and in its day this was an exciting escape thriller. Sinatra in his most successful box office role plays a brash self motivated American officer who leads a mostly British train load of prisoners of war to safety via the Swiss alps from internment in occupied Italy aided by many good none Nazi Italian's. The friction between the stiff regimented Brit's and the free loading American improvisation has been done so many times it has long been a creche but here it is very entertainingly achieved.I do hope i will not spoil the film for a first time viewer but the ending differs from the book with a so dull but very period down beat ending. As a foot note back in 1965 pop music and the charts was my generations "Cell Phone/Computer Game" where we were at, happening! Only slowly therefore did i discover Sinatra was a singer first and an actor second, but to this very day, i consider Sinatra a true movie star. Please give "Von Ryan's Express" a watch and i'm sure you will enjoy this cinematic moment in time.

I've watched VRE many times over the last 40 plus years. It was shown constantly on broadcast TV when I was a teen in the 1970's New York City (Sinatra, New York favorite), and because it's a decent action war film, I usually always watched it. I just rewatched VRE today (after at least 20 years) on a cable movie channel and showed it to my wife for her first time. I once would have rated this film a 9 or maybe a 10 even, but now it ranks as a 6 for me. My wife did watch it all so it is a decent escapist film. However, we started to make fun of it because the whole premise is they are escaping the Germans to go to Switzerland to "be free". When you got to Switzerland in real life during WW2 they put you in an interment camp until the end of the war, something the film never discusses. So Ryan is getting everyone killed off to save his reputation in general since he really messes up in the beginning of the film, getting shot down and captured in the first place and sparing the Camp CO. If you remember while watching the film, nearly every one of the POW's dies.....twice. It's hysterical but at the end they have the same amount of prisoners as at the beginning. And ammunition? This has a 1940's B Western mentality, unlimited ammo in the guns. And almost all of the WHOLE German army are armed with sub machine guns. Yawn. A flamethrower would have been cool at the end no matter what side used one. And Italiano Frank Sinatra doesn't understand a single word of Italian? And he's a Colonel flying a fighter plane with no wingman and decides to crash on the land instead of out at sea? Yawning on my 20th rewatch but the wife did stay around to see the ending (and laughed when she saw it). I give it a 6 because although the story is stupid, the production values are really high with the location shooting (it's a better film then the really lame Sinatra war film None But The Brave (also from 1965) which I give a 4 of 10 and also co stars Brad Dexter, (the least memorable Magnificent Seven member)). The fighter planes at the end were also cool as they were actual German planes not Mustangs (nor actual 109's but at least they were trainers from the period (108's)), so it's better then watching Battle Of The Bulge using American cold war tanks as Tigers. Finally, run through the tunnel! Why is it shorter to run around a mountain instead of through a tunnel anyway?

Released in 1965 (and starring a noticeably scrawny, 50-year-old Frank Sinatra as the title character), I honestly found this WW2, hero-worship, drama to be hardly worth getting very excited about.With its decidedly weak, paint-by-numbers storyline, this film certainly pushed the limits of daring and resourceful heroics just a little too far for their own good.If nothing else - This 2-hour war/drama (set in 1943 in Italy) definitely went well out of its way to prove to its audience that the Nazis were all just a bunch of bungling "dummkopfs" (natch). And, in the same breath, this film repeatedly reinforced Colonel Ryan's complete adaptability and quick-thinking as though it were his second language, or something.Anyway - For me, the comical highlight of this picture came about in a scene involving a pair of nylon stockings. I mean, you really need to see this scene for yourself in order to believe it in all of its utterly laughable absurdity.

Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard headline a solid cast in this rousing adaptation of a novel by David Westheimer, directed with gusto by Mark Robson and filmed on breathtaking locations in Italy. Sinatra plays Joseph Ryan, an American Air Force pilot shot down and taken to a prison camp run by domineering Battaglia (Adolfo Celi). This camp is mostly populated by Brits, members of the Royal Army's 9th Fusiliers, with a couple of other Americans on hand. When the prisoners see their chance for escape, they take it, only to be recaptured by Nazi forces. However, they manage to outwit their captors and gain control of the train being used to transport them.One element that really helps "Von Ryan's Express" to sparkle is the antagonistic relationship between Ryan and English major Fincham (Trevor Howard), who has his own way of doing things. The actors - also including Brad Dexter as American POW Bostick, Sergio Fantoni as sympathetic Italian soldier Oriani, John Leyton as Orde, Edward Mulhare as Costanzo, Raffaella Carra as Gabriella, the films' sole female presence, and Wolfgang Preiss as Nazi major Von Klemment, with James Brolin, John Van Dreelen, Vito Scotti, Richard Bakalyan, William Berger, and James Sikking in small roles - are all tremendous fun to watch, creating a number of strong personalities that nicely complement the action and spectacle.The film is also an impressive technical achievement, thanks to contributors such as cinematographer William H. Daniels and those in the sound department, and Jerry Goldsmith delivers an eclectic and lively score. The pacing is a little slow to start, focusing on setting up character and situation, and picking up considerably once the action shifts to the train. The many thrilling train sequences are certain to get the audiences' attention; everything culminates in a particularly exciting finale as Ryan, Fincham, and the rest try to fight their way to freedom through the Alps, with Nazi goons in hot pursuit. The resolution is surprisingly bittersweet, with a development the viewers might not see coming.In the end, the film does memorably espouse the idea that if just one person can make it to freedom, then the whole ordeal will be worth it, and provides potent entertainment for just under two hours. It would make very interesting viewing to compare it with the John Frankenheimer / Burt Lancaster collaboration "The Train", for sure. It's well acted, well directed, and completely involving.Nine out of 10.