rodrig58
There are many big names in this movie. The most natural are Burt Lancaster, Martin Sheen and Richard Harris. Lou Castel, Ingrid Thulin, John Philip Law, Ann Turkel, Lionel Stander, Ray Lovelock, O.J. Simpson, Lee Strasberg, are OK. Sophia Loren and Ava Gardner, just big names, give more importance to the movie. Alida Valli's role is too small for how good actress she was. The basset touched by the plague is the most natural, though he did not know that he's playing the role of a virus infected dog. The little girl is very natural too. We have suspense, some picturesque landscapes in Switzerland at the beginning and some good effects at the end, the train wagon models and the bridge collapsing very well done. A very current topic even now, in 2017, after 41 years.
Potomacker
For some reason the Chinese Railways decided to play this in a loop repeatedly on the route between Nanjing and Shanghai. I had seen this movie on some Saturday afternoon of my misspent youth so I knew enough of the plot to follow along even with the overdubbed Mandarin. Yeah, it's not exactly a verbal film. What struck me though were the overabundance of holocaust references that seem to pile on for no apparent reason. There is absolutely no justification for rerouting the train to Poland other than to evoke the Nazi razzia. Trains travel from Geneva to Stockholm but ferry between Malmo and Denmark not through the Baltic states and Finland. There is one quick shot of a map on which the only cities are Geneva and Nuremberg. http://www.myphotographs.net/sweden/picture1.html People on trains who are not allowed to get off, what scary parallel could be evoked to make the movie more frightening to an American public that was at the time abandoning passenger railway service. There is even a holocaust survivor aboard the train who tries to start a mini Warsaw uprising when he learns about being sent back to Poland. I am certain that there are more and I encourage anybody to use this movie as a drinking game. Every time 'the' holocaust is alluded to, one must take a shot. For those who like train disaster movies, instead I suggest Runaway Train (1985). Therein the premise of an out of control is at least believable.
writers_reign
As we all know there are only seven basic plots so every now and again you need to merge a couple to come up with something new. Alas, it's not as easy as blending two colours to make a third. In this case they took a look at Panic In The Streets in which a hood, infected with plague is loose on the streets of New Orleans and doctor Richard Widmark has to track him down and/or contain the disease and avoid widespread panic and fused it with one of those people in danger in a confined space entries a la The Towering Inferno and what they came up with was a hood infected with plague attempting to escape via a crowded train - okay, a snake on a train if you must. Actually it's not that bad, very watchable and any movie that features not one, not two, but THREE gorgeous gals, Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren and Alida Valli, albeit all homing in on their sell-by date, can't be all bad.
John T. Ryan
THE DISASTER Movie is a sub-genre of the Action/Drama hybrid that seems to go on being popular down through the years. Decade after decade, we find stories of terrible impending occurrences and the number of diverse characters, perfect strangers, who find themselves caught up in the dangerous, deadly happenings; which ironically bring the varied and disparate personalities together and often in great dependence on each other's care and vigilance.AS FAR as ancestry of the film type, we can only guess; but it surely can trace at least a portion of its lineage back to the earliest days of the cinema. Even the movies of the by then well established filmmakers of the early 1920's realized the great potential in story telling that could be realized via the road to filmed disaster.EVEN the great Cecil B. DeMille applied the disaster element in his first version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount Pictures, 1923); where he made the story both Biblical & Historical as well as Contemporary by the use of flashback from modern contemporary times to the age of Moses.TRACING the family tree of the disaster movie brings to light such titles as THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (????/Warner Brothers, 1954), AIRPORT ( ) and its clones, the "Sensurround" laden EARTHQUAKE (????/Universal,197?) And a minor matinée pot-boiler called ZERO HOUR (Paramount, 1957), which oddly enough gave birth to the low budgeted, big hit sensation, AIRPLANE (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker/Paramount, 197?).THE DISASTER Movie can even trace its roots to John Ford's STAGECOACH (?????, 1939), which had all the elements; the only difference being that the tragedy isn't caused by either man-made malfunctioning of transport mode or natural causes, but by the impending attack by local hostiles.TODAY'S HONOREE, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING ( ), is one more obvious title to come out of those 1970's "new" and "more relevant" and "more realistic" school of film. The production is spectacularly mounted, with some of the truly most beautiful outdoor scenery to be captured for a non-nature film. One certainly cannot fault the Production Team as being too tight with the purse strings; for they put together a spectacularly talented and well known international cast.READING THE Cast listing one finds such notables at the top of the bill as: Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheehan, Orenthal James Simpson ( "O.J." to you, Schultz), Lionel Stander (off the Blacklist), Anne Turkel, Ingrid Thulin, Mr. Lee Strasberg (master of The Actors' Studio in rare film appearance), Ava Gardner (no Schultz, not the Ava from GREEN ACRES), Burt Lancaster, Lou Castel (where's Abbott?), John Phillip Law, Ray Lovelock, …etc., etc., etc.,………..ANOTHER positive element is the inclusion of Jerry Goldsmith as the Composer for the Original Score for the film. Mr. Goldsmith's composition of both the Overture (theme) and the Incidental Music is on Parr with his other work. The prolific Goldsmith was responsible for a veritable treasure trove of beautifully rendered scores. Perhaps some of the most notable original compositions would (arguably) be: PATTON (20th Century-Fox, 1970), PAPILLION (Corona-General/Solar/Allied Artists, 1973) and RUDY (Tri-Star Pictures, 1993).ATTENTION!! WARNING!! CUIDADO!! LOOKENZEE OUTENZEE!! Could be a SPOILER a comin' up!! OUR STORY……….A passenger train which is carrying a real mixed bag of passengers, which most any self-respecting disaster film would do, is making a crossing of the Alps from Switzerland into northern Italy. A terrorist purposely spreads some deadly strain of virus throughout the train and its passengers, which would normally require a state of Quarantine. The train keeps on traveling and somehow or other comes under the jurisdiction of Lt. Colonel Stephen Mackenzie (Burt L.), U.S. Army, NATO Forces.BECAUSE OF THE Highly Contagious and deadly disease, the Lt. Colonel allows the train to continue on its way to the unsafe bridge works that lie ahead of it. There the train would surely crash; killing both all on board as well as ridding Mackenzie of the problem of dealing with a potential epidemic.OF COURSE, the battle hardened and cold-blooded military man couldn't have known that the presence of some Physicians on board miraculously provided the train crew and passengers with a cure for the infectious malady by using pure oxygen inhalation. (There is another twist, but we'll not tell here!) AS FINE of a production as this picture is, and as interesting as certain of the scenes and sequences are, we cannot give it a full and unconditional endorsement; for we disdain the heavy and underhanded-handed method in which its highly one-sided, "subtle", little message is sprung on its unsuspecting audiences. It is clearly one of an Anti-Military and America Hating. It is crystal clear that this is the crux of the hidden persuaders contained within.WE FIND this sort of loading of the story with a highly charged, one-sided and distorted view of what is the responsibility of authorities in general and the Military of the United States of America to be deplorable, deceitful and deeply harmful to unsuspecting viewers.AT least a can of poison has the written warning, the antidote and the ever present skull & cross bones to give proper warning.AS for our Grade, both Schultz and hid good buddy (me) say * ½ or a D-on its Report Card.POODLE SCHNITZ!!
