Spy Train | |
---|---|
Directed by | Harold Young |
Screenplay by | Leslie Swabacker Bart Lytton |
Story by | Scott Littlefield |
Produced by | Max King |
Starring | Richard Travis Catherine Craig Chick Chandler Thelma White Evelyn Brent Warren Hymer |
Cinematography | Mack Stengler |
Edited by | Martin G. Cohn |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Monogram Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 61 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Spy Train is a 1943 American crime film directed by Harold Young and written by Leslie Swabacker and Bart Lytton. The film stars Richard Travis, Catherine Craig, Chick Chandler, Thelma White, Evelyn Brent and Warren Hymer. The film was released on July 9, 1943, by Monogram Pictures. [1] [2] [3]
Bruce Grant is the author of Darkest Germany, an exposé about Nazi Germany. He and his friend Stew Stewart board a train in the United States to go meet Max Thornwald, owner of a chain of newspapers. Nazi agents in America have fabricated a photograph showing Thornwald's daughter, Jane, having lunch with Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler, and have successfully blackmailed Thornwald into suppressing Bruce's articles exposing Nazi atrocities. Bruce wants to know why his items aren't being published. Jane and her maid, Millie, happen to be on the train as well.
Meanwhile, Nazi husband-wife spy team Hugo and Frieda Molte have left a suitcase bomb in the train station's baggage check. Other spies have managed to steal evidence of the Molte's espionage activities, and left it in a suitcase at the baggage check as well. The Moltes' henchman, Krantz, is to retrieve the evidence. By coincidence, Krantz's girlfriend is Millie. Krantz holds a ticket stub for Millie's suitcase and the suitcase bomb. Krantz gives Mille the wrong ticket stub, and she unwittingly retrieves the bomb (as both suitcases are identical).
After the train departs, Bruce spots the Moltes aboard the train and realizes they are spies. Krantz realizes his error and sends a telegram to the Moltes. Herman Molte tries to retrieve the suitcase from Millie's compartment, but discovers an Italian spy and stabs him to death. A porter (Fred Toones) interrupts him before he can remove the suitcase. Bruce discovers the body, and plants it in the Moltes' compartment. The Moltes find it, and plant it in Bruce's compartment. Stew is left to guard Millie's bag, and Molte stabs him and grabs the suitcase. A conductor sees Stew is wounded, and confronts Bruce just as the Italian's body falls out of the closet.
Bruce is placed under arrest, but escapes. The conductor telegraphs ahead for a doctor and the police. The train comes to an unscheduled stop, and two detectives and a physician come aboard. Frieda Molte finally receives Krantz's telegram. Before she can decode it, Bruce enters her apartment and holds the Moltes at gunpoint. He grabs the telegram, reads it, and permits the Moltes to flee the train with the suitcase. They do, and try to open it once they are off the train. They die in a horrible explosion.
Jane clears Bruce's name, Krantz is arrested trying to retrieve the evidence bag, and the spy ring's headquarters are raided. With the fake photo of Jane exposed, Thornwald eagerly publishes Bruce's anti-Nazi articles. Bruce and Jane marry.
Since You Went Away is a 1944 American epic drama film directed by John Cromwell for Selznick International Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It is an epic about the American home front during World War II that was adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the 1943 novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret Buell Wilder. The music score was by Max Steiner, and the cinematography by Stanley Cortez, Lee Garmes, George Barnes (uncredited), and Robert Bruce (uncredited).
Jane is a comic strip created and drawn by Norman Pett exclusively for the British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mirror from 5 December 1932 to 10 October 1959.
The Alligator People is a 1959 CinemaScope science-fiction horror film directed by Roy Del Ruth. It stars Beverly Garland, Bruce Bennett, and Lon Chaney Jr. This film was the penultimate feature directed by Del Ruth, and quite different from those of his days at Warner Bros.
Ministry of Fear is a 1944 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Ray Milland and Marjorie Reynolds. Based on the 1943 novel by Graham Greene, the film tells the story of a man just released from a mental asylum who finds himself caught up in an international spy ring and pursued by Nazi agents after inadvertently receiving something they want. The original music for the film was composed by Victor Young.
Detective Inspector Walter Henry Thompson was a British police officer who is best known as the bodyguard of Winston Churchill for eighteen years, between 1921 and 1935, and between 1939 and 1945 during World War II. Thompson reportedly saved Churchill's life on numerous occasions. When he finally retired after the war, he published a memoir that made him famous in the United Kingdom and the Western world.
Olivia Joyce Compton was an American actress.
Who Done It? is a 1942 American comedy-mystery film directed by Erle C. Kenton and starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. It is noteworthy as their first feature that contains no musical numbers.
The Return of the Vampire is a 1943 American horror film directed by Lew Landers and starring Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Miles Mander, Roland Varno, and Matt Willis. Its plot follows a vampire named Armand Tesla, who has two encounters with Englishwoman Lady Jane Ainsley, the first taking place during World War I, and the second during World War II.
Operation Crossbow is a 1965 British spy thriller drama set during Second World War that concerns Operation Crossbow (1943−1945). It was directed by Michael Anderson and stars Sophia Loren, George Peppard, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, and Tom Courtenay. The screenplay was written by Emeric Pressburger, and by Derry Quinn and Ray Rigby, from a story from Duilio Coletti and Vittoriano Petrilli. It was filmed in Panavision at MGM-British Studios.
The Quiller Memorandum is a 1966 British neo noir eurospy film filmed in Deluxe Color and Panavision, adapted from the 1965 spy novel The Berlin Memorandum, by Elleston Trevor under the name "Adam Hall", screenplay by Harold Pinter, directed by Michael Anderson, featuring George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow and Senta Berger. The film was shot on location in West Berlin and in Pinewood Studios, England. It was nominated for three BAFTA Awards, while Pinter was nominated for an Edgar Award for the script.
Jacqueline Nearne MBE was a secret agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
Albert Lieven was a German actor.
Billy Bevan was an Australian-born vaudevillian, who became an American film actor. He appeared in more than 250 American films between 1916 and 1950.
Edgar Warren Hymer was an American theatre and film actor.
Eve Miller was an American actress who appeared in 41 films between 1945 and 1961. She was born in Los Angeles, California, and died in Van Nuys, California. She committed suicide at age 50.
The 1915 Vanceboro international bridge bombing was an attempt to destroy the Saint Croix-Vanceboro Railway Bridge on February 2, 1915, by Imperial German spies.
Inspector Ghote Goes By Train is a crime novel by H. R. F. Keating. It is the seventh novel in the Inspector Ghote series.
Ottola Nesmith was an American actress who appeared in more than 100 films and television shows.
Madame Spy is a 1942 American spy film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Constance Bennett, Don Porter and John Litel. The screenplay concerns an American intelligence officer who goes undercover and infiltrates a ring of Nazi spies.