Sleeping Car to Trieste

Plot

The film takes place almost entirely on a train travelling between Paris and Trieste in post-war Europe. Albert Lieven and Jean Kent play two somewhat mysterious people, at ease in sophisticated society. On Valya's behalf, Zurta steals a diary from an unnamed embassy in Paris, but in doing so, is forced to kill an embassy guard. Poole, an accomplice of theirs, is passed the diary, but he double-crosses the other two and attempts to escape with it on the Orient Express. Just in time, Valya and Zurta also board the train.

They are soon involved with not only tracking down Poole (who is hiding in a train compartment and desperately trying to avoid being moved by the train staff) but with several other travellers, including a U.S. Army sergeant with an eye for the ladies, an adulterous couple, an idiot stockbroker, a wealthy, autocratic writer and his brow-beaten secretary/valet, a bird watcher, a French police inspector, and the train's chef, who is forced to listen to a self-styled cooking 'expert' from England.

The diary is discovered by accident and passes through the hands of several people on the train, but when Zurta kills Poole, he is eventually confronted by the police inspector. In an attempt to escape, he leaps from the train, but is hit (and presumably killed) by a train travelling in the opposite direction. The diary is presumed to be lost with him.

Cast

Production

Rona Anderson made her film debut. "I did enjoy doing it," said Anderson. "It was a film full of nice little cameo performances.... Paddy Carstairs had a good way of relaxing you and I think he had a very good way with actors generally."

However Jean Kent later stated she "didn't like" the film "and didn't get on very well" with Carstairs. "You never knew where you were with him... I don't remember enjoying it. I had silly clothes. I wanted to be very French in plain black and a little beret but I had to wear these silly New Look clothes. I was playing a superspy of some kind. But who was I spying for?"

Release

The film proved more popular in the US than most British films, enjoying a long run in New York.

The New York Times wrote, "not without its trying moments, but on the whole it is a mighty interesting ride...The director John Paddy Carstairs shrewdly maneuvers the pursuers and the hunted about the train in a natural and credible manner so that the possibility of an imminent meeting creates a good deal of tension...None of the principals is too familiar to audiences here, and at times dialogue is lost in some of the players' throats, but the performances are generally satisfying."