Night Train to Munich (1940)

Sir Rex Harrison and Dame Margaret Lockwood star in this wartime thriller. It is 1939. German troops are marching through Europe. At a munitions plant in Czechoslovakia, James Harcourt, the inventor of a new armor plating is being told to leave the country at once. Lockwood is his daughter. She packs to go with him, but the Germans arrive before she can join him and she is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Paul Henreid is also one of the prisoners. She helps him when he is whipped. One of the guards knew Henreid before the war. He helps them to escape and they make it to England. They go to see Sir Felix Aylmer. There we learn that Henreid is a German agent. Lockwood receives a phone call telling her to make a secret contact to learn where Harcourt is. She tells Henreid that she got the call, but cannot tell him where he is. While looking for her father she has to contact Harrison. He learns from her about Henreid and suspects that his was a staged escape. Two supposed British officers come to Harrison's room and knock him out. They take Lockwood and Harcourt to a sub.

At a meeting of the brass, Harrison volunteers to go into Germany to get back Harcourt. He goes disguised as a Nazi officer and gets into the building where Lockwood and Harcourt are held. He talks the authorities to allow him to try to reason with Harcourt to cooperate. He tells Lockwood to play along with him, including a romantic interest. In the middle of the night they are ordered to take a train to Munich, altering his plans. On board the train, a couple of Britishers (Basil Radford and Naughton Wayne) think they recognize him. Henreid grows suspicious and asks for an investigation of Harrison. They report that he is an enemy agent. Henreid is to allow Harrison to proceed to Munich. Radford and Wayne just happen to overhear the phone conversation and realize who Harrison really is. They decide to warn him regardless of the consequences. They slip a note in Lockwood's food, and Harrison meets them in the lavatory. They tell him that the Nazis know he is not a German.

Henreid arrests them, but Radford and Wayne help Harrison overpower him. They bluff their way into a ride in a car, and Harrison even gets Radford and Wayne permission to go along as chauffeurs. A mountain chase in Switzerland ensues, with all but Harrison getting aboard the lift across the valley. Harrison holds off the Germans in a shootout while they escape. He jumps on just in time, but Henreid reverses it. Harrison shoots him in the leg. Harrison runs out of ammunition as the lift nears the station. He climbs out the window of the lift and jumps onto the one coming back the other direction. And they all live happily ever after.




Harrison


Lockwood