Night Train to Paris

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source: Night Train to Paris

Trailer—Night Train to Paris

Night Train to Paris

Night Train to Paris (1964) is a bit short on the thrills or intrigue, in fact, it really has neither. The director was more interested in filling up the time with useless 60's music and boring drunks. Aliza Gur is dull as an actress. Leslie Nielsen exhibits no tough rawness as he does in television as in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958–1961), Thriller (1960) or Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963-1965). He wears plastic black horn-rimmed glasses with attached eyebrows, large plastic nose, bushy moustache as a disguise. Yeah, stupid. For train buffs, it has a train ferry (a ship or ferry designed to carry railway vehicles). It was probably the Dover to Dunkirk line, from Britain. (It stopped in 1992 due to the opening of the Channel Tunnel). There's some cool jazz music and the intro is a nice assemblage, but that's it. Also recommended: Night Train to Munich (1940) Night Train (1959) Night Train to Lisbon (2013) Night Train to Terror (1985) Terror Train (1980)

Routine thriller set on the pre Channel Tunnel boat train. Enlivened by Leslie Nielsen in pre Frank Drebbin mode. Every now and again he does something silly and you recognise the character.

It is so hard to take Leslie Nielsen seriously in this role. Every so often, you expect him to break into his Inspector Drebbin routine, and the movie might have been watchable if he had. Without giving any spoilers, just two sample observations: You need a disguise, Of course you do. So you don a Grouch Marx pair of glasses complete with nose and mustache. You want a clever subterfuge? Dress up one of the characters in a bear costume. This serves the approximate purpose of the gorilla suit in an Abbott & Costello comedy. I wonder who is in that suit now.... Life is too short to waste 90 minutes of it on this flick.

Personally I would not call this a 'sleeper' as another reviewer has done. It is just not that good. Not that it is a stinker by any means, but it is only average at best for the spy genre. While watching I had the impression that it was made to capitalize on the James Bond movie "From Russia With Love", in which Aliza Gur had a small part incidentally. Nielson is somewhat of a lackluster leading man and just doesn't have the wit, charm, or presence that is required in this type of film. The best thing about it is the black and white photography and the direction isn't bad either. However, the dialog is corny, the acting never believable, and the plotting poor. The DVD print is top notch with both sound and picture of high quality. And as I said, the B&W photography does lend some interest. Not a throw-away, but average at best.

This is a real "sleeper" (no pun intended), a tight, compact suspense film that really keeps moving throughout its economical running time. The cast is uniformly superb, the direction is assured and fluid, and the film is a reminder of just how many quality low-budget films were made even into the 1960s, before the collapse of the double-bill and the end of black and white as a commercial medium. Well worth looking for; I don't know if the film is available on tape. It should be.

This 1964 film would have fared far better had it been a comedy. We know that Leslie Nielsen could do drama, but a comical interpretation of the film would have enhanced it, especially when on board on New Year's Eve, Nielsen puts on an outfit where he practically looks like Groucho Marx. Instead, this film, clumsily down, becomes one where people are trying to smuggle a tape out of England to France, and two of the people are immediately killed by a heavy-set man using gadgets on his prey. There is very little plot here if any, and of course, one of the ladies turns out to be in with the bad guys.