Remembered if at all for being the film which killed off Mark Robson and Robert Shaw. It's an old school spies on a train film, with an all star cast for TV sales. So there's Lee Marvin and Linda Evans and Mike Connors and Joe Namath.
Gene Corman and Monte Helman were called in to finish the movie and wound up doing more than they probably had to. The opening scene where Shaw and Max Schell are speaking in dubbed Russian while their lips are clearly moving in English. That was a post production decision. Why make that decision? Ah, I wasn't there... maybe they had reason to. But why get rid of Shaw's voice for the whole film?
Why have Max Schell in such a bad disguise? Why have so many characters in the film? It'd be better if Marvin was up against It. He doesn't do that much. They should've killed off more people - Linda Evans (who does barely nothing, just sitting and chatting), Mike Connors, Joe Namath. They throw in Horsct Bucholz for good measure. Why not have one of our leads as traitors? Or two?
They needed to have this take place over a shorter period of time and have better reasons for not getting off the train.
There is plenty of action. But it's both complicated and dumb. I really wanted to enjoy this - spies on a train. Terrific. But it's too loud, too many stars, too dubbed, and too silly.
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