| Night Train to Munich | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Carol Reed |
| Produced by | Edward Black |
| Written by | Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder |
| Starring | Margaret Lockwood Rex Harrison Paul Henreid Basil Radford |
| Music by | Louis Levy |
| Cinematography | Otto Kanturek |
| Editing by | R.E. Dearing |
| Studio | Twentieth Century Productions Ltd. |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | 29 December 1940 |
| Running time | 95 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Night Train to Munich is a 1940 British thriller film. It was directed by Carol Reed, with writing credits by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. It is liberally adapted from the Gordon Wellesley novel Report on a Fugitive.
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When the Germans march into Prague, a scientist who is working on a new process for armour-plating, Dr. Bomasch (James Harcourt), is flown to England. His daughter Anna (Margaret Lockwood), however, is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. There, she is befriended by a fellow Czech prisoner named Karl Marsen (Paul Henreid). Together, they escape to England, and Anna finds her father by placing a cryptic advertisement in a newspaper at Marsen's suggestion.
Dr. Bomasch is working for the Royal Navy at the Dartford naval base. He is guarded by Dickie Randall (Rex Harrison), a naval officer working undercover as an entertainer called 'Gus Bennett'. Marsen, who is actually an undercover SS agent, has followed Anna; he and his agents soon capture her and her father from Randall, and return them to Germany on a U-boat.
Randall volunteers to try to rescue them while they are still in transit in Germany. Posing as a German army engineer major named Herzog, he gains access to Anna, telling the Germans that they were lovers in Prague four years ago, and that this could help him persuade her to get her father to cooperate. He contrives to accompany them on a train trip to Munich with Marsen and two guards.
On the train, they meet two Englishmen, Charters and Caldicott, who are trying to get home after Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Caldicott (Naunton Wayne)) recognizes Randall from their days at Balliol College, Oxford. Randall denies knowing him, but Marsen's suspicions are aroused. At a stop, he telephones his superiors, who agree to investigate and call him back. Charters (Basil Radford), attempting to use another telephone, overhears the return call confirming there is no Major Herzog. Marsen arranges to have Randall arrested when they arrive in Munich.
Caldicott slips a warning to Randall, who is thus prepared when Marsen pulls out a gun and ends the charade just before they reach Munich. Charters and Caldicott overpower first the two guards, then Marsen. After swapping uniforms with Marsen, Randall manages to get a car. Along with Charters and Caldicott, they make a break for neutral Switzerland. They drive up a mountain road to a cable car and, amidst a gun fight with the pursuing Germans, safely cross the border.
The film has been frequently promoted as a sequel to The Lady Vanishes, although the story is not a continuation, and only two of the characters (the two slightly eccentric and cricket-mad English travelers Charters and Caldicott) are carried over. This originates in their similar train-based settings, and in the recurrence of two of the earlier film's character types in the two leads: the clever young woman in distress and eccentric upper-class Englishman. In the earlier film, this is Iris and Gilbert, and in this one, Anna Bomasch and Dickie Randall. The female character is played by the same actress, Margaret Lockwood, in both films.
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