Pluskylang Great Film overall

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

trashgang It's so sad to see that a flick like this with a cult status never really had a good release. It do has a DVD release but it was just a ad copy from a bad master. Be aware that the copies out there were all cut for 4 or 5 minutes and that the only release so far hat has the full uncut version is the Flemish release, sadly it's OOP and really hard to catch, Even the US Blu Ray release isn't complete.Being an Italian flick I guess that must be the reason why it never was out there as it should be. But the positive thing is that it is a must see. The acting is superb and even clocking in over 90 minutes it still works. Some even say that Snowpiercer is the remake of Cassandra Crossing...Even as the story is rather simple this is a perfect example of a seventies flick about disasters and there were many out there back then.A must see if you want to see how acting was done in the days, see the difference now. f you come across his flick, pick it up.Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

bkoganbing More stars get into harm's way once again in The Cassandra Crossing, another one of those Seventies disaster films. This time the stars have in their course a deadly plague released on a European train. If that's not enough the method of containment has been prescribed to send them across an old abandoned bridge that will more than likely collapse under the stress. At least that's one authorities are hoping.Authorities are represented in the form of Burt Lancaster a NATO general who when learning of the situation devises this murderous scheme which may kill more people than the terrorists who robbed a Swiss biological facility might ever do themselves. Debating him is scientist Ingrid Thulin. Lancaster and Thulin are like a 20th century version of Spock and McCoy.On the train are Dr. Richard Harris and Sophia Loren who think they have the virus contained and it might not be necessarily fatal if treated in time. In any event they're not willing to die for science or humanity or anything else. If I was Richard Harris and married to Sophia Loren, I'd have a lot to live for too.Some familiar names are on the list of passengers and crew. At one point a crew of troops in white winter uniforms, armed whose faces you never see. Lancaster has it mind for them not to come back and they can't see it. Their presence flashes concentration camp survivor Lee Strasberg back to those really bad old days. An interesting couple are Ava Gardner playing pretty much a version of herself with a young gigolo in the person of Martin Sheen. He's a drug smuggler who does his thing with the cover of her celebrity. In the end though he's a hero.The Cassandra Crossing probably belongs at the top of the second tier of disaster films of the time. A rather incredulous plot leaves one puzzled. There had to be a better way to handle these events.

Potomacker For some reason the Chinese Railways decided to play this in a loop repeatedly on the route between Nanjing and Shanghai. I had seen this movie on some Saturday afternoon of my misspent youth so I knew enough of the plot to follow along even with the overdubbed Mandarin. Yeah, it's not exactly a verbal film. What struck me though were the overabundance of holocaust references that seem to pile on for no apparent reason. There is absolutely no justification for rerouting the train to Poland other than to evoke the Nazi razzia. Trains travel from Geneva to Stockholm but ferry between Malmo and Denmark not through the Baltic states and Finland. There is one quick shot of a map on which the only cities are Geneva and Nuremberg. http://www.myphotographs.net/sweden/picture1.html People on trains who are not allowed to get off, what scary parallel could be evoked to make the movie more frightening to an American public that was at the time abandoning passenger railway service. There is even a holocaust survivor aboard the train who tries to start a mini Warsaw uprising when he learns about being sent back to Poland. I am certain that there are more and I encourage anybody to use this movie as a drinking game. Every time 'the' holocaust is alluded to, one must take a shot. For those who like train disaster movies, instead I suggest Runaway Train (1985). Therein the premise of an out of control is at least believable.

Lee Eisenberg The current H1N1 epidemic (swine flu is a misnomer) makes "The Cassandra Crossing" a little more interesting. Mostly, this story of a terrorist spreading a disease on a Swiss train is a common disaster flick, what with the giant cast. I'd say that the upside is that it shows how the military officer (Burt Lancaster) tries to cover up the problem. The 1970s of course saw a lot of movies about suspicion of the government (like "The Parallax View" and "Three Days of the Condor"). A really fine scene is Sophia Loren in her slip.So, this isn't any masterpiece, but certainly a fun one. Also starring Richard Harris, O.J. Simpson, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, Lee Strasberg, Lionel Stander, Ingrid Thulin, Alida Valli, John Phillip Law, Ann Turkel, Ray Lovelock and Lou Castel.