clanciai Review of Sleeping Car to Trieste

Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

A train thriller could hardly be more brilliant and delightful

[10/10 · 10 August 2021]

The impressing thing about this much neglected and underrated train thriller is its marvelous web of polyphony - many characters are involved, and they all have a vital part to play. Albert Lieven is the regular villain who starts off with a cold blooded murder, and he is no ordinary thief. We never get to know what state secrets or what country this is all about, but that's not important. Lieven gets cheated, as so many villains do by other villains, and the cheat gets away on a train to Trieste from Paris, so Lieven and his accomplice Jean Kent, as smart and false as ever, have to follow along on the same train, where there are many other passengers, of course, and some of them have other secrets to hide, business to get away from or just a need for a jolly ride, like David Tomlinson, here early in his career, who actually steals the show, drinking whisky all the time and insisting on playing cars with everyone who hasn't the slightest interest in it, but who finally becomes the catcher in the rye, unintentionally, but with glory, among delightfully young French girls trying to slip through the customs with all their Parisian hats. Finlay Currie as an awesome Scotsman of some fame traveling around giving boring lectures happens to accidentally get involved, as so many others, and it is difficult to say who of all these characters makes the best performance. Outstanding is also Paul Dupuis, the only genuine Frenchman on board, with a penchant for disturbing jazz music, and Derrick de Marney, going for a vacation from his wife with a young charming mistress, (Rona Anderson). I think though I would give the prize to David Tomlinson as (accidentally) the most important character of all for his sheer stupidity, which he shares though with the poor Hugh Burden, easily confused with Naunton Wayne, being the same kind of character, here bullied as Finlay Currie's secretary but eventually doing something about it. It is brilliant polyphony all the way, extremely entertaining, and with the obligatory suspense and excitement gradually building up around yet another murder.