InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

dglink Carol Reed's 1940 thriller "Night Train to Munich" bears more than a passing resemblance to Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" of two years earlier. The two films share a star, Margaret Lockwood; crucial scenes aboard trains in Central Europe during the pre-World War II era; and the use of obvious miniatures. However, the most amusing carry-overs from the Hitchcock film are the characters of Charters and Caldicott, two English travelers who evidently have been touring the continent since 1938. The quintessential Englishmen, embodied by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, are always miffed by the inconveniences of travel, bumble into the action at critical moments, and are seemingly more pre-occupied by cricket scores and the whereabouts of golf clubs than European politics on the brink of a world conflict.Unfortunately, the script by Sidney Gilliat, from a story by Gordon Wellesley, does not focus on Charters and Caldicott, but rather on Lockwood and her attempts to get out of Prague to rejoin her inventor father in England, where he has found asylum from the Nazis. Although relatively short, the film has credibility problems, and action often jumps forward inexplicably, leaving gaping holes of exposition missing. Rex Harrison and Paul Henreid star alongside Lockwood; although Harrison was once referred to as "sexy Rexy," Henreid has more appeal, even in this pre-Casablanca pre-Now Voyager role. Evidently made as anti-Nazi propaganda, the film lacks tension, feels light, and borders on unintentional comedy, as when the incompetent Gestapo is easily fooled. Of course, everyone speaks English, and Harrison outwits the Nazis and passes for a German officer, because he once lived in Germany. A simplistic film that requires huge leaps in logic, "Night Train to Munich" is saved only by the talents of Lockwood, Harrison, and Henreid, and, of course, by the welcome return of Charters and Caldicott.

Robert J. Maxwell One of Carol Reed's earlier works, it can't be all bad, though it's propelled by the usual propaganda of the war years. It opens with Hitler in a long shot, having a tantrum and banging his fist on a map of Austria. Dissolve to boots goose stepping down the Austrian streets. Back to Hitler, howling about the Sudetenland and slamming his fist on the map. Horses, carriages, ranks of soldiers in Nazi helmets, flags flying, in Czechoslovakia. We get the impression that Hitler's yen for Lebensraum is infinite and will never be satisfied until he plants the swastika all over the world, including Hoboken and the North Pole.You have to love the rooms these movie dictators occupy. Hitler's office is the size of O'Hare Airport and there are two sets of small round tables and chairs on the floor, period. If you were seated at one table and wanted to speak to someone at the other, you'd have to walk fifty feet. I'd love to live in a palace with rooms like that, instead of this abandoned railway car in the middle of the Chichuahuan desert.It's an enjoyable thriller with many comic moments, most of them provided by Radford and Wayne, fretting over golf clubs, as they fumed over missing the cricket match in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes." They also gave some respite to the horror and mystery of "Dead of Night" in 1945.The plot is too complicated to describe in any detail. Rex Harrison is a special agent impersonating a major in the Wehrmacht in order to smuggle the appealing Margaret Lockwood and her scientist father out of Germany to the safety of neutral Switzerland. Paul Henreid is an SS officer determined to spoil their plans.The performances are adequate to the task, which isn't very demanding, but wardrobe had not gotten down with any accuracy the uniforms worn by the Germans. Harrison has a tall, lean figure and a face with the dimensions of John Carradine's. And, booted, in his tight army uniform with its riding breeches and too-tall cap, from certain angles he could pass for a cross between a human being and a giraffe. Paul Henreid (née Paul Georg Julius Hernreid Ritter von Wassel-Waldingau in Austria-Hungary) is usually a hero, as in "Casablanca" but he also proves himself to be a capable and handsome villain.It's certainly of the period, but I enjoyed it.

HeathCliff-2 Dreadful, dated, overrated. Found it hard to believe it was directed by Carol Reed. There was no suspense, no pacing, artificial sets and miniatures, contrived unbelievable story, endless silly banter by that British duo in the last twenty minutes of the movie. I was shocked at how lethargic the pacing was, and how contrived it was at every turn. The scene between Harrison and Lockwood in the hotel room, when they are conspiring against the Nazis, was directed in the style of a drawing room comedy, as if there was absolutely no peril involved. The final shoot-out was directed and scored like a B western, not to mention at least 20 or more bullets from each gun. None of the stars were as dynamic as they are in other movies, and there wasn't a single set, as far as I could tell, that was real. The difference is that Hitchcock, not to mention Welles, wove magic both in direction and lighting, so that they could make sets somehow look real. Carol Reed was not up to the task. He got way better later, but this one was B movie all the way.

Spikeopath Carol Reed is a truly wonderful director, his CV boasts the likes of The Third Man, Oliver and Odd Man Out, all great films for sure, which only makes it more infuriating that a gem like Night Train To Munich is incredibly hard to get hold of. I have only managed to catch it myself because of the unearthing of VHS tapes long thought to have been lost years ago, and it's just like finding hidden treasure I tell you! Based on a story by Gordon Wellesley, and scripted by the adroitly talented teaming of Sydney Gilliat/Frank Launder, Night Train To Munich is a lesson in how to not over blow your subject, all the sequences flow without boring the viewer, with Reed astutely approaching the material with subtlety instead of blunderbuss bluster.Another highlight of the movie to me is that it could have so easily been a propaganda bore, the Germans being the devil incarnate, but here it feels that an equality of characterisations was the order of the day. Something that many other genre pieces lost sight of further down the line. Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood and Paul Henreid are all excellent here, whilst wonderful comedic relief comes courtesy of Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford's English cricketers {fans of The Lady Vanishes will identify right away}. Although this picture is script driven above all else, the action sequences are a joy to behold, with the final third of the picture an unadulterated pleasure, spies and stooges, plants and treachery, oh it's all here folks, enjoy, if you can get a good print of it! 9/10