Night Train to Paris
Director: Robert
Douglas
Year:
1964
Rating: 5.5
This has the framework
of a solid little spy suspense film, but after a good beginning it sags badly
in the middle like a middle aged man gone to pot. And at only 64 minutes
that is a big chunk of the film. It has echoes of Hitchcock if he was a B
film maker. The innocent man caught up in espionage, the police after him
for a murder he did not commit, a beautiful desirable woman of suspect allegiances
and of course the MacGuffin. Mainly all playing out on an overnight train
from London to Paris.
Leslie Nielsen before his comedy days plays
Holiday, a travel agent. At the time, Nielsen was best known for his TV show,
Disney's The Swamp Fox, a favorite of mine when I was a beastly brat. It
is New Year's Eve and all travel is booked, but Catherine Carrell comes to
him saying she and an old friend of Holiday's desperately need to get to
Paris. The fate of nations is at stake. Since she is played by Aliza Gur,
he figures out a way. Aliza was Miss Israel and one of the two female gypsies
fighting in From Russia with Love. She puts the Ya in Oh Ya. At the same
time, a professional killer (the menacing Eric Pohlmann) is not taking the
night off either. A few early kills puts the film on good footing, but once
on the train it goes soft. Everyone is partying and like every party where
you have not had enough to drink at, it seems silly and tiresome. Except
perhaps for the lovely Edina Ronay dancing. But there are a couple opportunities
where any good spy would kill as they did earlier but hold back. A shame.
