Off-List: Von Ryan's Express
As usual I
have selected three off-list movies for 1965 and the first of them is Von Ryan’s
Express. It not a movie I knew to be good and therefore deserving a place on
the List. In fact, I have never seen it before. Rather, going through a list of
major films from 1965 this one stood out as being interesting and of a genre
that is sadly underrepresented on the List, the adventure movie. Also, it
features one of my favorite actors, Frank Sinatra.
It is 1943
and Colonel Joseph Ryan (Frank Sinatra), a pilot, has been shot down over Italy.
He is brought to a POW camp holding around 400 or so British soldier, who from
the look of it have been there for some time. As their own colonel has recently
died, Ryan is now the ranking officer.
The British
prisoners are having a row with their Italian guards, notably the commandant
Battaglia (Adolfo Celi), led by the fiery Major Fincham (Trevor Howard). As a
result, Battaglia has shut off the water and medicine supply as well as a
number of other necessities. The first thing Ryan does is to put an end to this
childish row and get proper care for the men. This does not go down so well
with the British, who nickname him Von Ryan.
Then the
Italian army surrenders, and the Germans take over. In the limbo the prisoners
escape and begin a mad dash towards the Swiss border, mainly on board a train.
This is a
war time prison escape movie and as such one of many. It is probably not the
best, but it does have a number of qualities. First and foremost, it keeps up a
high level of suspense and pace, making it a fun and easy movie to watch. The
train ride to Switzerland is never boring and easily the best part of the
movie.
Secondly, 20th
Century Fox went all out and filmed much of the movie on location in Italy and
it paid off. The footage is amazing. The train ride through the beautiful Italian
landscape filmed from the train and from the air is a brilliant advertisement for
the country.
There are
passages where the adventure part of it gets the upper hand, especially the
slapstick scenes with the Italian guards and the laughing British soldiers. The
movie loses a lot of credibility in those scenes and though the intension is to
lighten up the movie, it goes too far.
Then at
other times it is surprisingly faithful to the story it is trying to tell. The
Germans actually speak German and the Italians speak Italian. The planes really
are Messerschmidt aircraft and people do die meaningless deaths. The ending
itself is not exactly the typical Hollywood ending that you would expect, but
surprisingly dark.
Sinatra is,
well, Sinatra and that is always good, thought this is nowhere his finest
performance. He does what he needs to do and that is fine enough. His role could
easily have been done by Sean Connery. It is Trevor Howard who steals the
picture. I cannot recall ever seeing him this fiery. The looks and scowls he
sends off are priceless as are his frequent verbal jabs.
I found
myself greatly entertained by this movie and in a decade the List editors have
stuffed with bleak, weird or arty movies, a film like “Von Ryan’s Express” is a
breath of fresh air. I could easily see this one again.