When I was thinking of what theme I should do for January, my wife was the first to come up with the New Year concept. Originally she suggested road trip movies. New Year means trying to make changes in your life, and sometimes that means leaving the place you’ve been stuck in. I liked that idea but wasn’t sure I could do enough road trip movies to make it through the month. 

But I do think you can encompass travel into my larger theme of New Year, New You. Now, we are going to stretch it a little further and suggest any movie where the people are traveling somewhere even if they don’t experience much growth along the way.

I love road trip movies. I love movies set on trains even more. I love train travel in general. I have ridden a lot of trains all over Europe and Asia; it is a wonderful way to travel. As much as I love to drive, it is very nice to ride the rails and not have to worry about anything. Trains are so much more enjoyable than planes. You have more legroom. You can get up and walk about. And the scenery is often much more beautiful. 

There are lots of different types of movies set on and around trains. I love a good mystery or thriller set aboard a train.  Trains are enclosed spaces, so the killer (or thief, or whatever) only has so many places to hide. But there are usually many cars so that you aren’t just stuck in one room. And the train is traveling, which allows for different scenery and different passengers to come and go, and the ever present possibility that someone could jump.

An important diary is stolen from the Paris Embassy by Zurta (Albert Lieven) and Valya (Jean Kent). They hand it to a man called Poole (Alan Wheatley) who is supposed to usher it to a designated rendezvous point. Instead, he runs to the Orient Express with intentions to sell it to the highest bidder. The diary is said to contain information that in the wrong hands would lead to yet another world war.

Zurta and Valya learn of Poole’s deception and board the train. It departs for Trieste. To complicate matters, Zurta is wanted by the authorities in Trieste and must depart before they arrive there.

They don’t exactly know where Poole is on the train; he’s doing a good job of staying low, and they can’t make a show of looking for him because they had every intention of using the diary themselves. 

Mixed in with all of this espionage is a big bag of characters having their own side stories. Usually this kind of film has lots of these types of characters, but their screen time is minimized. They exist to give the film color, to give the setting some realism. But here they are given ample opportunity to be on screen. Numerous, what would normally be side characters, are given time to have fully drawn stories. Our leads often feel like supporting parts. 

There is a young GI looking for some birds to chat up and winds up in a car with a British ornithologist. A boorish Brit spends all his time with the train’s renowned chef trying to teach him how to cook dull dishes. A businessman takes a woman with him who is decidedly not his wife in hopes of an affair, but fate keeps intervening and keeping them apart. Etc. and so forth. 

Poole bribes a porter to get a private room where he hides the diary. But then he’s kicked out because that room was reserved by a very prominent and rich writer. He’s then sat with a French detective, Inspector Jolif (Paul Dupuis). Eventually, the diary will be found, and someone (or someones) will find themselves dead. It is Inspector Jolif who will have to put everything together. But even then the film doesn’t bother itself too much with that angle.

I sound like I’m complaining, but I’m absolutely not. I enjoyed this crazy cast of characters and each of their stories. I would have enjoyed it more if they’d spent just a little more time on the thriller aspects, but mostly this film is a lot of fun.