Night Train to Paris (1964)

i must have seen a different film!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Leslie Nielsen stars as Alan Holiday, a former O.S.S. agent who now works as a P.R. man for an airline in London. One New Years' Eve, a beautiful young woman (Aliza Gur) walks into his life, wanting passage to Paris. Also involved is Alans' old friend Jules Lamoine (Hugh Latimer). He gets them on board a ski train, where they will be pretend to be a model, and an assistant to fashion photographer Louis Vernay (Andre Maranne). It's all in the name of national security, and making sure that a disc containing all-important information is delivered to the proper personage.As long as you know ahead of time not to expect a serious thriller, it's possible to derive some entertainment out of this. In reality, it's a rather goofy, hip comic twist on the spy genre that had simply exploded with the arrival of "Dr. No" two years previous. It requires Nielsen to sport one of the most ridiculous of disguises, one of those eyeglasses-fake nose-fake mustache deals. And, just to give you a further idea of what to expect, a helpful partygoer in a bear suit, whom Alan refers to as "Smokey", figures into the plot. There's no real suspense, and no real action. Even though a character dies, everything is given a light touch.The casting of Nielsen makes perfect sense given the tone of the movie, even though his career in comedy was still a good decade and a half away. He's likable enough, and the supporting cast is solid: Dorinda Stevens and Edina Ronay as models, Eric Pohlmann as a thug, Cyril Raymond as a police inspector. The female cast are all notably sexy, especially Ronay.Decent light entertainment, forgettable but mildly amusing, and appreciably brief in length, at just an hour and five minutes.Six out of 10.

Night Train to Paris (1964) is a bit short on the thrills or intrigue, in fact, it really has neither. The director was more interested in filling up the time with useless 60's music and boring drunks. Aliza Gur is dull as an actress. Leslie Nielsen exhibits no tough rawness as he does in television as in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958–1961), Thriller (1960) or Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963-1965).He wears plastic black horn-rimmed glasses with attached eyebrows, large plastic nose, bushy moustache as a disguise. Yeah, stupid.For train buffs, it has a train ferry (a ship or ferry designed to carry railway vehicles). It was probably the Dover to Dunkirk line, from Britain. (It stopped in 1992 due to the opening of the Channel Tunnel).There's some cool jazz music and the intro is a nice assemblage, but that's it.Also recommended: Night Train to Munich (1940) Night Train (1959) Night Train to Lisbon (2013) Night Train to Terror (1985) Terror Train (1980)

Leslie Nielsen stars in a smart breezy film about an important magnetic tape that has to go to Paris on New Years Eve. Nielsen goes to the aide of a friend and ends up in murder and espionage as he boards the title and is forced to avoid a mad killer.Its just over an hour and is a fine mix of the silly Nielsen and the very serious one. Its nice to see that he could be both a man of action and a smart mouth fellow. If there is a problem its that its almost too slight a film, the plot propelling things along at such a speed that the film forgets to generate enough suspense. Its kind of a spoiler to say, but you really do know that Nielsen is going to be okay in the end. Its not bad, but when I got to the end of the film I was still hungry for more.Recommended but have a second film ready

Personally I would not call this a 'sleeper' as another reviewer has done. It is just not that good. Not that it is a stinker by any means, but it is only average at best for the spy genre. While watching I had the impression that it was made to capitalize on the James Bond movie "From Russia With Love", in which Aliza Gur had a small part incidentally. Nielson is somewhat of a lackluster leading man and just doesn't have the wit, charm, or presence that is required in this type of film. The best thing about it is the black and white photography and the direction isn't bad either. However, the dialog is corny, the acting never believable, and the plotting poor. The DVD print is top notch with both sound and picture of high quality. And as I said, the B&W photography does lend some interest. Not a throw-away, but average at best.