Movie review - "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974) ****

 Really fun. Smart. Funny. New York-y. The four robbers have different personalities. Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller are hugely entertaining. Shows how it's done.

Moive review - "Seven Sinners" (1936) ***

 Bright lively thriller which was I think the first time Launder and Gilliat worked together as a writing team. It's very well directed by Albert de Courville, a person about whom I know little. I loved the opening with a maquerade ball and a death. It's very slickly done.

The star duo of Edmund and Constance Cummings are a lot of fun. He boozes in the first bit, a rip off of The Thin Man, but settles into his own rhythm. Last third maybe a bit static. Shame they couldn't have done it all on a train.

Three train crashes! 

Movie review - "Rome Express" (1932) ***1/2

 Lively thriller, considered the best British film ever made when it came out. It's lively, tight, and full of pace. Sidney Gilliat worked on the script. Walter Forde directed - not well known but this is considered his best. Of the cast I only recognise Conrad Veidt and Cedric Harwick. Light touch. That card player with the rdoning voice was annoying. Plenty going on. Good fun. Looks like a dream.

Movie review - "The Garfield Movie" (2024) ***

 Some strong plotting, funny jokes and an exciting sequence on a train at the end. It focuses a lot on Garfield and his dad, who sorry we don't really care about - John and Odie get sidelined - but it does give the film a core. All the main female roles are villainrs or winesome princesses which is a little odd in 2024.

Movie review - "Murder on the Orient Express" (2017) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 It's got that great title, setting and denoument. Ken Branagh directs in hyperactive mode. It's over the top. Some genuine stars (Johnny Depp, I guess Ken, Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz) mixed in with the next level down (Daisy Ridley) and some unknowns. The ending is emotional.

Movie review - "Avalanche Express" (1979)**

 Remembered if at all for being the film which killed off both 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.

Movie review - "Terror Train" (1981) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Slasher film set on a train without a lot of gore - it's more a thriller - with a decent budget and cast: Jamie Leigh Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, the magician David Copperfield (!). It was Roger Spotiswoode's first movie.

The concept of a slasher on a train can work - it did in Horror Express - but I'm not sure it does here. Maybe because part of the joy of a train movie is the cross section of people and here it's just teens. I didn't get the sense that the train was moving or that it was dangerous outside but maybe I dozed off.

It looks slick, is well acted and Copperfield's role is well integrated - he's a magician who is the main suspect. The magic stuff is different. There's a trans twist at the end which got old fast.

Movie review - "Predator 2" (1990) ***

 Dismissed at the time, rather unfairly, but it ages well in part because it exemplifies a film no longer made: the noisy Joel Silver actioner. There's drug wars, hamfisted satire of the media, tough cops giving sass to their lieutenants, strong supporting actors. It gives Danny Glover a great starring part (maybe he can't quite carry it off but I love he's got the chance), throws in Gary Busey, Ruben Blades, Bill Paxton, Maria Conhcita Alonzo and Morton Downey Jnr (who counted at the time).

The script cheats a lot - the Predator is forever attacking segments of LA where the cops happen to be (eg a train where Alonzo and Paxton are on board along with a Bill Goetz style mugger shooter). It's disparate geographically.

It's silly but it takes its own path instead of remarking the first so good on it. Directed by Stephen Hopkins.

Movie review - "Narrow Margin" (1990) ***

 No one seems to ever talk about this remake, with its unfashionable director and middle aged stars, but it's a decent thriller with some twists and turns, less glaring logic problems than other Peter Hyams movies, a very funny quip at a killer "you know what I like about you? your tall", beautiful photography, strong acting (James Sikking is good as always as a killer, Gene Hackman is always strong, Anne Archer gets a decent role). There's also his crisp whispering - it's a thing in Hyams films.

Borrows a bit from the original - bratty kid with a gun, tubby man on the train, assassins bribing the hero, hero's bestie is killed early - but it lacks the twist (it's an undercover gal). Nice scenery.

Movie review - "The Narrow Margin" (1952) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Excellent noir, beautifully shot and crisply written. Charles Macgraw has the role of a lifetime as the tough cop escorting gangster's wife Marie Windsor. Windsor is terrific. The main flaw of the film is she's so good you feel gypped that the last third shifts to this blander other actress - it's a neat twist that she's the actual wife and Windsor is a cop but I miss Macgraw-Windsor scenes and felt Windsor deserved more of an exit. Her death is shocking - I just wish she'd taken out at least one baddie. Very good baddies.

Movie review - "Finders Keepers" (1984) **

 A frequently forgotten entry in Richard Lester's oeuvre... despite the success of the last two Superman films, this was all he could get made?

It's an ensemble comedy piece, set in 1973, presumably so Michael O'Keefe can impersonate a soldier escorting a dead body home.And there's a subplot about the dead body never actually having served because the real kid is hiding out (Jim Carrey) for dodging the draft at the behest of his dad (Brian Dennehy).

Everything feels off here. The pace is sluggish, the casting not quite right. O'Keefe is alright, I guess. I normally like Beverly d'Angelo, as an erratic actor he meets on the train, but not here - her gay jokes don't age well. Pamela Stephenson adds some life as widow who steals $5 million but she's barely in the film. Ed Lauter seems uneasy as a fellow conman who has quite a big role. Carrey has a decent bit of screen time as the kid hiding out but he never pays off in the way that you hope. Ditto Brian Dennehy. Louis Gosset Jnr pops up as O'Keefe's conman mentor in a part that could actually be cut out of the film.

The whole film is based on misunderstandings which gets tiresome. There's all these coincidences - Michael O'Keefe's conman gets confused for a helper for crook Ed Lauter, the dead returning soldier is actually hiding out. It doesn't pay off in a decent way.

Maybe it had all kept on the train or something. Lester's touch, so confident in his European films, feels uneasy here with Canada standing in for America. Maybe a more youthful lead, like say Carrey even, would be more engaging than O'Keefe, who plays it cocky, when someone more bumbling might be effective - and make more sense he had a mentor. Maybe a younger actor than d'Angelo too to give the lead duo more freshness.

It's awkward and needed another draft and probably for Lester needed to be filmed in England where he was more comfortable. Some people like this movie though.

Movie review - "The Lady Vanishes" (1979) **1/2

 I grew up hearing nothing but bad things about this movie. I think people were just so offended by it. But it has nice locations, stylish widescreen photography.

Some changes are fine, like turning Margaret Lockwood into a Carole Lombard screwball heroine played engagingly by Cybill Shepherd. I like Elliot Gould as a shaggy haired reporter. Their banter, where he talks about her legs and she talks about the men she married, is the most clearly George Axelrod bit of the movie (Axelrod wrote the script).

Other changes were silly. Why not keep someone trying to kill Angela Lansbury only for Shepherd to get a conk on the head? And have that cause her brain injury rather than Cybil doing it drunkenly.

Why not have Cybill Shepherd and Elliot Gould dislike each other at first and banter? Like getting him kicked out of the hotel room. And I missed the Oxford-Cambridge joke. And Shepherd wants to kiss Elliot Gould two thirds of the way through... why not hold off until the end? Did the nun get captured at the end? I wasn't sure.

Still it is a recognisable remake. There's Charters and Caldicott, the adulterous lovers, the nun who works for the baddies but helps them. Herbert Lom is always reliable but too familiar as a baddie - and I think the part would've been better with someone younger and more charming, more of a potential romantic threat to Gould for Shepherd. Angela Lansbury is fine as always but maybe too believable as a spy - dotty, old, tubby Dame Mae Whitty was more fun and unexpected.

I do think they would've been better off, if they wanted to remake it, updating it to the present day and setting it behind the Iron Curtain. I mean, they still had trains then.

The big issue I think is the direction from Anthony Page. He's not bad - perfectly servicable. But there's none of Hitchcock's atmosphere - the menace underneath at the beginning, the sense of Englishmen abroad, the paranoia of the main girl, the light by play.

It occurred to me at the end when Gould and Shepherd sing the tune Lansbury gives them that they were meant to co star in At Long Last Love - both can sing. Lansbury too. Not too late for a musical!

Movie review - Michael Shayne#2 - "Sleepers West" (1941) *** (re-watching)

 I like train movies and the stars - Lloyd Nolan, Lyn Bari, Mary Beth Hughes. It's a little Narrow Margin as Nolan escorts witness Hughes in a train to give evidence; Bari is a His Girl Friday type reporter desperate for the story. There's a neat subplot where Hughes romances an alcoholic married man.

The film loses some pace when it gets off the train - it's a shame it couldn't have stayed on the whole time.

Movie review - "Northwest Frontier" (1959) **** (re-watching)

 Rank's attempt to conquer the world markets were much mocked but it did result in some of that studio's best movies - this and A Night to Remember are among the best.

This gives Kenneth More one of his best roles, a cheery engineer in 1905 India. He is a bit patronising and refers to the natives as children. There's a lot of defensive paternalism going on here - saying the British are needed to keep Muslim and Hindu tearing each other apart, etc.

I enjoyed his romance with Lauren Bacall - she's a sensible no-nonsense governess, a little wry about the British. But they are both sensible and respect each other.

I.S. Johar is full of life and energy as the train driver, though he's required to say "I feel like banging my people's heads together". The rest of the support cast is strong - Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde White, Ursula Jean etc.

I liked the Macguffin of the kid (dubbed voice). I wish the death toll had been higher - surely that arms dealer could've gone? And the crew could have used a second traitor. Or someone other than a half-caste Muslim.

The location filming is spectacular - CinemaScope is well used. Production values are splendid. It starts with a bang - maybe a mistake to then go to the safety of the British cantonment (or that should've been wiped out). Has some very solid action sequences, and a suspenseful walk across the rail tracks.

Rousing music score.

Movie review - "Horror Express" (1972) ***1/2 (re-watching)

Put this on for fun. Spanish actors pretending to be in Russia. Lee and Cushing. A script that gleefully raids The Thing. Telly Savalas stealing the show in the last 20 minutes. Some attractive women. Dodgy effects. The romance of a train. Rasputin like figure.

Great fun. Love it.

Movie review - "Alcatraz Express" (1962) ***

Two episodes of The Untouchables put together for a cinema release and it makes a strong movie in part because the story is ideal - it's about Al Capone being sentenced to prison and his plan to escape while being transferred to newly-formed Alcatraz.

Robert Stack's sincere, intense performance and sing-song-y delivery adds to the camp fun - particularly when he talks about isolating vermin in a place like Alcatraz (they talk a lot about construction costs which is a nice realistic touch), tells a guy who has been shot that he's going to die soon so may as well tell the truth, spends a lot of time hanging around his office with the anonymous other Untouchables.

Walter Winchell's infomation packed narration adds to the fun as does Neville Brand's performance as Al Capone and the very high death toll. I mean, seriously, people were always being offed in this show.

Its well done and a lot of fun.

Book review - Smith#2 - "Dark of the Sun" by Wilbur Smith

The film version of this was remarkably faithful to the book - of course changes were made, notably in term of tone, but the guts of it are in Smith's novel: Bruce Curry, mercenary, on a mission to retrieve some hostages and diamond in the war torn Congo; they head out on a train with a crew including the black Ruffo, the cowardly Belgian Andre, the drunken doctor and a brutish soldier; the airplane attack; the shooting of two kids by the brutish soldier; arriving at the town; staying overnight; the doctor going to help a pregnant mother; General Moses and his troops arriving; the train almost getting away but one carriage rolling back, including the diamonds; Andre being tortured; rescuing the diamonds and some trucks; a final escape; the brutish soldier taking off and being killed.

There are lots of differences but nothing huge - this is set during the Baluba Rebellion not the Simba ones; the brutish soldier is a cockney here, not a German; Andre is gay here, sent in Belgium after his affair with a married man was revealed; they pick up the girl at the destination, not along the way; Ruffy isn't killed, the final pursuit is prompted by raping the girl; there's no subplot about the savagery of Curry and him going nuts; the final fight is a more cat and mouse stalk than a rampaging orgy of violence.

I think the film made decent changes - turning the villain into a German, making it the Simba period, making Andrea a "local", adding the time lock (so it isn't Curry making a mistake). In the book we never find out what happened to the doctor and there's  a few action scenes after the retrieval of the diamonds including a truck crashing into the water and a few more attacks from the locals. Ruffo being killed packs more of a wallop than Claire being raped.

The novel surprised me in some ways - even the most horrible villain (the cockney, General Moses) are given at least a page to explain why they are why they are (horrible parents, brutal treatment from the Belgians). It also has Curry reflecting on his busted marriage and why it went wrong - saying mean and cruel things when he should have been kinder; this is written with a sensitivity from Smith that wasn't present in his later novels - I assume he was thinking of his early marriages, and was still raw and sensitive from them having ended.

Very exciting action - some terrifying stuff like Andre meeting General Moses (Smith always had some sympathy for gay characters in his novels but they generally died horribly).

Movie review - "Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train" (1987) **

Bob Ellis directed three feature films. Let that sink in next time you're wondering if boomers weren't spoilt.

Ah look I guess it's not the worst thing - he was literate, a good writer, knew a lot of decent actors. And at least this tries to be something different - an erotic film set on a train.

It's not very sexy though despite Wendy Hughes in the lead. There's little build up to the sex. The sex scenes are mostly someone clambering on top of Hughes.

There's a lot of talk. Apparently Ellis had a longer cut. It probably would've been hard to get through but I think if you make an Ellis film you go with it.

The plot: Hughes is a hooker on a train and she has a series of random encounters - with a football coach (John Clayton) who seems based more on Ellis than his childhood friend Roy Masters, a soldier (Rod Zuanic - remember when he was in every second Australian film?), a travelling salesman (Norman Kaye), a musician (Steven Spears) and a mystery man who works for ASIO (Colin Friels).

It's very Ellis - women are for sex, men talk about themselves, and ASIO plot to kill women loving left leaning politicians. It's not very believable and doesn't quite work but at least it's different. It's one of those films that probably would have come across less silly in French.

The acting is okay. Friels shouldn't have used that Scottish accent. I like movies set on trains.

Movie review - "Lady on a Train" (1945) **** (re watching)

Easily Deanna Durbin's best film since It Started with Eve - one of her strongest ever casts and scripts and while the genre is a little untypical she does it well.

You just wish it was better directed - Charles David does a workmanlike job but someone better could have made it sing. (David didn't do that much directing). He later married Durbin becoming her third and longest lasting husband - the producer Felix Jackson was her then husband so this must have been an interesting filming.

But he's got a good cinematographer, strong script, excellent cast and the support of a major studio.

After the last few films where Deanna chased after men or was passive it's great to see her with a specific goal here... investigating a murder which she witnessed that no one believes.

Durbin's specialty was playing sensible types so she's not entirely well cast - someone with a bit more ditzy-ness would've been more believable - but she is very winning. She's gorgeous, full of pluck and sings some songs... better known ones here including 'Silent Night' (oddly, to her unseen dad over the phone) and 'Night and Day'.

The support cast is a treat: Ralph Bellamy is excellent (scary at the end), Dan Duryea is always good, George Colouris, Allen Jenkins, Edward Everett Horton... I didn't mind David Bruce as the love interest - he's not as good as say Bob Cummings but it's a fun role, as a mystery writer roped in to help solve the crime, who spends a lot of time falling over, and stuffing up and it's to Bruce's credit that the character still has balls (it's great there's another girl interested in him - all Durbin films should have had this but surprisingly few didn't).

The first third of this I kept wishing David was a better director but the last two thirds it moved at a fair clip and got better and better. It was contrived all the stuff Durbin pretending to be a circus performer but I loved the scenes at the circus. There's movement and action and high spirits. It's one of Durbin's best films.

Movie review - "Runaway Train" (1985) ****

I have vivid memories of seeing this in the cinema which haven't left - the yelling and papers on fire at the prison, the boxing match, Eric Roberts incessant yet strangely comforting nattering, Jon Voight speaking through clenched teeth and a bloodied hand, the sense of freezing cold, the train operator who has his head shoved in the toilet.

It remains a powerful, arresting film - they didn't make many movies like this back then and they don't now. Rebecca de Morney is nearly unrecogniseable but adds warmth and human feeling as a third person on the train.

There's not actually that much action i.e. jumping around on a train. You can see how they keep the budget down - lots of scenes inside the caboose and inside the train HQ. The film maybe could have done with another sequence and maybe another baddy for them to overcome. John Ryan's arrival on the train feels a little anti climactic - Voight easily bests him.

Magnificent ending. Good editing. Great prison scenes - Eddie Bunker works on the script and also appears. It feels so real.

Still would've loved to have seen the Kurosawa version.