Reeling Backward: "Night Train to Munich" (1940)

You have to think about the situation in England when "Night Train to Munich" came out in August 1940. Hitler ruled Europe uncontestedly. The Brits had just rescued their remaining forces from France at Dunkirk. The Blitz was about to commence, a year of nightly terror for London dwellers.

The U.K. had been the world's mightiest global empire, now humiliated and (most thought) about to be conquered.

And here is this cheeky romantic comedy caper -- a lark, a piffle, starring Rex Harrison as a supremely self-pleased spy posing as a Nazi to smuggle a brilliant scientist and his daughter out of Germany. Heck, when we first meet Harrison he's singing penny-ante tunes while hocking records at a wharfside shop.

(Although, given Harrison's legendary talk-singing turn in "My Fair Lady," one tends to doubt the mellifluous warbling is his own.)

One can fault the British for their stiff-upper-lip routine, tired classism and tamping down of emotions. But this film, innocuous as it is, represents a massive middle finger waving across the channel at the bloodthirsty huns.

It starts with the German invading Czechoslovakia. Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt) is a scientist working on a formula for armor plating superior to what Germany has. He manages to escape on the last plane out, but his daughter, Anna (Margaret Lockwood), is captured and sent to a concentration camp.

There she meets Karl Marsen, an impudent young man who is nastily beaten by the prison guards for a speech against Nazi brutality. They hang out at the barbed wire line separating the men's and women's section, and a little POW romance starts to bloom. Karl is able to bust them out and get her to England, where she is reunited with papa.

Alas, it has all been a ruse. Karl is secretly an agent of the Gestapo, using Anna to find her father. He snatches them and smuggles them onto a German U-boat.

Paul Henreid plays Karl, and it's a bit disconcerting at first to see him as a Nazi, considering his iconic role is as resistance leader Victor Laszlo in "Casablanca" just three years later. He even sounds different, eschewing Laszlo's deep, sonorous tones for a higher pitch.

Harrison plays Gus Bunnett aka Dickie Randall, the British agent charged with guarding the Bomasches who got one-upped by Karl. He asks to be given a chance to return the favor, as they know the scientist and his daughter will be transported on the titular train.

Dickie is puckish and too clever by half, a confidence man with a charter from the British government. He dresses as a German Corps of Engineer Major, Ulrich Herzog. Using only a forged letter of introduction and his own wits, he bluffs his way past successive layers of the Nazi bureaucracy.

It's funny how, having convinced one German functionary, he actually recruits them to brag on his behalf to the next layer of the hierarchy.

Claiming he had an affair with Anna four years earlier, he worms his way aboard the train with the mission of convincing the scientist to cooperate by the time the arrive. So Herzog/Dickie woos Anna -- partly for show, party for real -- pretends to recruit her father and plays a cat-and-mouse game with Karl, who both harbors suspicions about Herzog and resents him for horning in on Anna.

Despite betraying Anna, Karl still seems to harbor hopes of continuing their prison camp liaison.

Butting into the mix is the curious pair of Charters and Caldicott. This is a comedic relief duo first introduced by Alfred Hitchcock in "The Lady Vanishes." Played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, they're British chaps who travel about the globe on some vague sort of business, talking obsessively about cricket and backing up into various goings-on.

They were such a hit with the crowd that various filmmakers started inserting Charters and Caldicott into their movies. They were a staple for about a decade, did some radio and were eventually reprised as a BBC show.

They're funny for a little while, including their introductory stretch where various German officers order them off the train, out of a waiting room, off of wagon, and so on. At first they express indignation, followed by obstinance, inevitably giving way to compliance when large men with guns are called in.

"Night Train to Munich" was directed by Carol Reed ("The Third Man") from a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder -- the same scribes behind "A LadyVanishes" -- based on a short story by Gordon Wellesley.

It's obviously a low-budget affair, notable for the persistent use of miniatures for exterior shots. The entirety of Karl and Anna's escape from the POW camp is accomplished by tracking across the prison yard to show a barbed wire fence ripped open. It looks little more than a child's model.

Harrison and Lockwood make for an interesting pair. She's a smart and independent woman (by 1940 standards, anyway), and is continually vexed by Dickie's risk-taking and abundance of self-confidence. While he's passing himself off as Major Herzog -- why just a major? why not a colonel? -- he wears a monocle and an even more inflated sense of superiority than he normally does.

At one point he barges into her bedroom while she's abed in her nightie, explaining that he has told the Germans he will reignite her passions based on their previous affair. He calmly explains the situation and proposes they toss for who gets the couch. Pretty risque stuff for that era.

I don't think "Night Train to Munich" is a particularly great film. The story can't seem to decide who to follow. At first it's Anna, then it's Dickie, and for awhile -- too long, really -- Charters and Caldicott are the main show.

Still, I like the idea of this movie more than the one they made. Producing a flip, insolent send-up of the Nazis at a time they were facing the very real possibility of becoming subjugated by them is an act of enormous cheek. Can you imagine what would've happened to everyone involved in the film if the Axis had won?

Reeling Backward: "The Agony and the Ectstasy" (1965)

Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison were both booming screen presences with a decided tendency toward hamminess. They knew the taste of the scenery, and enjoyed it.

But I think both actors deliver some of their best work in "The Agony and the Ecstasy" -- a measure of restraint and disappearance into the character, as opposed to bursting out of the box as was their wont. Neither received Oscar nomination, and indeed the film in general was rather ignored during the awards season, receiving five nods from the Academy in only "technical" categories, winning none.

This, in a weaker year for film, with "The Sound of Music" winning Best Picture -- a film I've still not been able to bring myself to watch all the way through -- and the overwrought "Doctor Zhivago" and the overrated "Ship of Fools" forming its main competition.

I would put "The Agony and the Ecstasy" above them all.

It's a very good, borderline great film that takes a historical subject and muses upon the two men who made it happen: Michelangelo and Pope Julius II (played by Heston and Harrison, respectively). It falls into the category of what we now would call "historical fiction," based upon the book by Irving Stone. The story is part history, part mythology and part dramaturgy.

History is full of ironic inconsistencies. Like the Fourth Crusade, which departed to free Jerusalem from the Muslim horde but instead sacked the allied city of Constantinople. Or Joseph Cinqué, one of the slaves who fought for freedom aboard the ship Amistad later (by some accounts) becoming a slave trader himself.

Chief among fate's little jokes is that Michelangelo is probably best known for his painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, when in fact he labored nearly all of his life as a sculptor. The Pope insisted upon the greatest living artist decorating his chapel, despite Michelangelo's objections. This is the story of their clashing, from which emerged one of the enduring works of mankind.

Julius was known as the warrior-pope who fought many battles to keep the papal lands under Rome's control, rather than being gobbled up by the French and others. The movie depicts him literally sword in hand, wearing ornate plate armor and striking down his enemies in bloody splashes of violence. Harrison plays him as a vainglorious man given to fits of anger, but one who truly believes his mission in life is to exalt God and raise up his church.

The movie takes a little while to get really rolling. Michelangelo is working on the pope's tomb -- 40 statues, all told -- and clashing with Bramante (Harry Andrews), the pope's stiff-necked and territorial architect. Julius decides that his chapel needs some saints on the ceiling, and more or less forces the artist to do his bidding, at cut-rate wages.

There's a nice little speech that Raphael (Tomas Milian), another great artist of that age, gives about two-thirds of the way through in which he nicely describes the economics of artistry in the early 1500s. We're whores, he says, dependent on the wealthy and powerful to provide the funding to do what we are compelled to do.

Michelangelo certainly lives out this description on the film, repeatedly defying Julius only to eventually bend the knee and kiss the ring (quite literally).

His first rebellion is to start the portraits of saints, only to scrape them off the wall or ruin them with buckets of paint in a drunken fit after deciding "the wine is sour," meaning he has no creative will to do anything inspiring. After hiding out as a marble quarryman, he's struck by a vision to do a grand collection of frescoes depicting most of the pivotal acts of the Old Testament, centered by God's creation of Adam.

The image of a bearded old man reaching his hand out to Adam's is surely one of the most enduring images in the public consciousness.

Weeks become months, months become years. "When will you make an end?!?" Julius repeatedly shouts up to Michelangelo, high above the floor of the chapel on his scaffolding. "When I am finished!" the artist replies, equally thunderous. Michelangelo quits, is fired, gives up, but always returns to the task.

The film really gains steam in the third act, where first Michelangelo and then Julius are struck down by ill health -- exhaustion for the painter, war wounds for the pope. Each man is forcefully made aware of his mortality, and finds himself reaching out to the other for understanding. The dynamic of begrudged servant and domineering master slowly evolves into a pairing of mutual respect.

Director Carol Reed helmed a lot of "prestige" projects like this; he's probably best known for "The Third Man" and his Oscar-winning direction of "Oliver!". Screenwriter Philip Dunne ("How Green Was My Valley") turns in a fairly conventional but well-done piece in the "Great Man" tradition of moviemaking.

Diane Cilento has a fairly forgettable role as a matron of the Medici family, the powerful clan that controlled his hometown of Florence and first sponsored his artistry. The idea, a predictable one, is that the pair loved each other in their youth, but he chose sculpting as his expression of ardor, and she married another. Indeed, Michelangelo gives a speech in which it's made clear he essentially lives a monastic existence without sex.

Honestly, it's just an example of a very Y-chromosome movie in which the studio decided to inject a little feminine flavor.

Quibbles aside, though, I enjoyed "The Agony and the Ecstasy" a lot more than I thought it would. It's an exploration of how men accomplish great things, usually by sacrificing some large part of their personal happiness to rededicate to a noble endeavor.

Reeling Backward: "Odd Man Out" (1947)

Before "The Third Man" and "The Man Between" -- the latter of which also starred James Mason and was featured in this column a few months ago -- director Carol Reed made "Odd Man Out."

This film influenced and was influenced by American film noir, especially the first act where some IRA gunmen rob a mill and the getaway is botched. But the movie grows progressively more dream-like and surreal, and becomes less about the heist than one man's stumbling walkabout through the seedy side of Belfast.

Mason plays Johnny McQueen, local chief of the IRA -- though the film itself is careful never to directly label it so. Officially, the film is neutral about "the troubles," even going so far as to proclaim in a title card that it is only concerned with the innocent people caught in the fray.

But with the noble struggle of Johnny and those who help him, assisted by the sinister, steely presence of the police inspector (Denis O'Dea) on his trail, it's not difficult to see where the film's true sentiments lie.

"Odd Man Out" was based on the novel by F.L. Green, who co-wrote the script with veteran film scribe R.C. Sherriff.

Johnny, having holed up in a house for six months after escaping from prison, leads the heist to fill the coffers of the organization despite the protest of his men that he's gone soft. He insists on going anyway, rebuffing the warnings of Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan, in her first screen role), the woman who runs the house where he lives, and who clearly has fallen in love with him.

Sure enough, Johnny swoons during the job and is wounded by one of the guards at the mill, shooting the man dead in return. The getaway car driver speeds away too fast before Johnny is pulled all the way in, and he falls out. The accomplices drive on, leaving him to his fate.

At this point the movie takes an odd turn. Shot in the shoulder and slowly oozing life, Johnny becomes the object of a massive manhunt by both the police and locals interested in turning him in for the reward money of 1,000 pounds. A few people help him, or at least see him on his way before they get into trouble themselves.

Two middle-aged women help Johnny into their house and start to dress his wounds, but when the man of the house returns home and they start squabbling about whether to turn him in, Johnny slips out the door.

He falls asleep in a horse-drawn cab, which by chance carries him safely through the police checkpoint. One copper, familiar with the old cabbie, asks him who he's got in the back, and the fellow sarcastically replies, "Johnny!" They share a laugh and the cab is let by.

The cabbie later deposits a delirious Johnny in a lumber yard, where he's discovered by Shell (F.J. McCormick), a mousy old hobo. Shell would love to turn him in for the reward, but is cagey enough to know the IRA would target him for collaboration. Instead, he turns to the local priest, Father Tom (W.G. Fay). They have a long rambling conversation about Shell's compensation for bringing Johnny in, which Father Tom insists will be a greater reward in Heaven rather than a monetary one.

As things turn out, Johnny ends up at the dilapidated building where Shell lives with two other men. The three argue about his fate as Johnny slips in and out of consciousness.

Shell wants to receive something for turning Johnny in, he doesn't care to whom. Tober (Elwyn Brook-Jones), a failed doctor, fixes up Johnny's arm but insists that he'll die without a blood transfusion at a hospital, which of course would mean his capture. Most extreme is Lukey (Robert Newton), a mad painter who wants to capture Johnny's dying moments on canvas.

Meanwhile, Kathleen roams the streets looking for Johnny. She's arranged passage on a boat overseas where they can be together, away from the troubles.

What's interesting about this rotating circus of strange characters is that everyone wants to get their hands on Johnny for their own, ultimately selfish purposes.

Shell wants a reward; Lukey wants to create art out of death; Tober wants to use wasted medical skills to save his body; the inspector wants to see justice satisfied by Johnny's execution; even Father Tom is less concerned with Johnny's fate than with saving his soul, offering him a chance for a final confession of his sins.

The only person who truly cares about Johnny, the whole of his body and soul, is Kathleen.

Things end gruesomely. Kathleen finally finds Johnny near the harbor, near death. She struggles to help him to their escape as the police close in. Realizing they won't make it, and rather than let the authorities carry out their judgment, Kathleen shoots at the ground, forcing the police to return fire, killing them both. (In the novel, she shoots Johnny herself, but this ending wouldn't pass muster with the censors.)

I really enjoyed the dark atmospheric cinematography, and a wonderful, large cast. The movie kind of wanders away from itself in the second half, but I mostly enjoyed the places where it rambled.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: Berlin Spy Sagas

I'm trying something a little different here for the classic film review -- I'll be comparing two Cold War spy films set in post-WWII Berlin. The films are "The Man Between" from 1953 and 1965's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold."

Both movies feature a protagonist who's cynical and world-weary, yet finds a way to do the right thing. They both end with thrilling climaxes at the East/West Germany border. And both star Claire Bloom.

"Spy" was directed by Martin Ritt from the novel by John le Carre; "Man" was directed by Carol Reed, best known for "The Third Man," which covered similar ground.

Richard Burton played the "Spy," while James Mason was the "Man." Both men's characters carefully cultivate a sense of self-loathing, which in each case is pierced by their relationship with the Claire Bloom character. She plays the innocent, or at least naive, woman who falls for a man knowing full well he is rife with faults.

In "Spy," Bloom plays Nan, an English member of the Communist Party. She works in a library and quietly agitates for her beliefs. Then one day Alec Leamas (Burton) comes to work as an assistant librarian. He's approaching middle age, a disgraced spy, and a drunk. Little does she know that this is a carefully orchestrated ruse to make the East Germans think he is a turncoat.

After Leamas goes over the wall -- in this case, the Berlin Wall -- he is quickly caught in a bit of subterfuge between his Marxist counterparts. There's a battle of wills between the number two spymaster, Fiedler, and his boss, Mundt. Leamas has been sent over to discredit Mundt, but when Nan is brought in as a witness, she unwittingly becomes a pawn in a complex game of spy intrigue.

"Man" is set earlier, in the days before the Berlin Wall was built. But the border is no less forbidding. Still, Susanne (Bloom), a young English girl visiting her brother and his German wife, finds that she can cross over to the East German side without too much trouble. There she meets Ivo Kern (Mason), a shadowy charmer who has some nefarious hold over Susanne's sister-in-law.

In short order she learns that Ivo is the man working both sides against each other, with his own skin his primary concern. In a thrilling extended chase sequence that occupies the last 45 minutes or so, Ivo and Susanne are caught on the wrong side of the border with all the Communists on the lookout for them. It's during these scenes, where Ivo repeatedly attempts to dissuade Susanne from any amorous feelings toward him, that we see what's really in his heart.

Both films are shot in grim black-and-white that lends a gritty, cinema verite feeling. It's interesting how in "Man" there is Communist propaganda all around, especially images of Joseph Stalin, while in "Cold" the backgrounds are drab and cramped, without ornamentation.

Each films ends with a showdown during an attempted border crossing, as Bloom and her paramours attempt to flee back over to the West German side. I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say they both end in tragedy.

This is the third Claire Bloom film I've featured recently in this space -- she played Hera in "Clash of the Titans" -- and I must say I've enjoyed discovering her as an actress. She's had a long and productive career, and at age 78 she's still going with regular television appearances.

She had her first major role the year before "Man," playing the ingenue who steals Charlie Chaplin's heart in "Limelight," his last movie -- well, his last good movie, anyway. I'll be keeping an eye out for more of her work.

Both films: 3.5 stars

(Programming note: I couldn't find a trailer or a current DVD available for "The Man Between.")