Berlin Express. 1948

I saw Berlin Express the other day at the Film Forum. I won 2 tickets in a trivia contest, and I gave away one of the tickets to someone waiting on the line to get in. He was so surprised by my gift. The first person I offered the ticket to, drew back from me as if I was pulling some kind of scam, silly woman. The film which was shown as part of the Robert Ryan retrospective is a good decent cold war thriller directed by Jacques Tourneur and that alone makes it worth seeing.Very influenced by the films of Hitchcock, most notably The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps, and in fact there is one scene that is a direct homage toThe 39 Steps. Full of twists and turns most of which you don't see coming, and no one is who you think they are, which can get a bit tiring. Ryan is not given much to do, he’s part of the good ensemble which includes Merle Oberon who was on the last legs of her film career. The really memorable thing about the film for me is the location photography by the great cinematographer Lucien Ballard who was married to Oberon at the time. Filmed in Frankfurt and Berlin the footage of the destruction and devastation of these two cities is reverting and shocking.