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Sunday, May 30, 2021

TIME BOMB / TERROR ON A TRAIN (1953)

Like its UK/USA titles, this straight-forward suspenser doesn’t oversell its premise: Munitions Expert Glenn Ford races the clock to defuse a detonator hidden on one bomb among eleven cars of sea mines on a designated London to Portsmouth train.  Clean location handling from cinematographer-turned-director Ted Tetzlaff (who never quite lived up to the promise of THE WINDOW/’49*, rest of cast & crew all top Brits: lenser Freddie Young, art director Alfred Junge, composer John Addison), with tasty character support and (alas) a subpar romantic angle between Ford & bored Paris wife Anne Vernon.  The idea is that the incident brings a return to the excitement they felt back in WWII, but Kem Bennett’s debut feature script not up to much beyond good basic construction right thru its neat final twist.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: The British Boulting Brothers stayed in London to play similar tropes in their nuclear bomb thriller SEVEN DAYS TO NOON/’50.  Best in a docu-like evacuation sequence. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/06/seven-days-to-noon.html  OR: *WINDOW remakes & near remakes include current NetFlix streamer THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW/’21 (not seen here).  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-window-1949.html

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