BERLIN EXPRESS (Tourneur, 1948) - There were many great shots of post-war Frankfurt and Berlin in this film, but I couldn’t resist this one: I always love it when things are framed through windows. We’re in fact seeing a reflection of the next compartment - not sure that could happen, but it sure makes for a neat shot.
The movie’s pretty neat, too, though on the schematic side: you’ve got a quartet of men on a train, reflecting perfectly the four districts of Berlin at the time - an American, a Brit, a Russian and a Frenchman - find out someone’s gunning for a peace-making German, and try to protect him. Obviously one’s a traitor, and I probably - just following the schematic nature of the set-up and the fact that there’s also a french secretary - should have guessed who, but the plot is not very relevant or interesting. The scenery is great though, the destruction of war doing more to emphasize the necessity of peace and collaboration than the sometimes a bit preachy voice-over (yup, this is that rare beast, the idealistic noir). And the scene at the end is kind of heartbreaking, knowing how history unfolded.
