Von Ryan's Express is a 1965 World War II adventure film directed by Mark Robson, starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard based on a novel by David Westheimer.
Plot
Colonel Joseph L. Ryan is an American pilot whose P-38 Lightning is shot down. He is captured by the Axis and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy, run by the cruel Major Battaglia. The camp is populated mainly by British prisoners (9th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 167 Infantry Brigade, 56th (London) Infantry Division).
The previous British commanding officer, Col. Brian Lockhart, had recently died as a result of the harsh discipline in being put in the metal "sweat box." When Ryan arrives in camp, Major Eric Fincham is the ranking British officer. The American colonel being senior to Fincham, he assumes command of the prisoners.
Ryan pays respect to his predecessor by refusing to sit in the late commanding officer's chair. When an American prisoner (of which there are only eight) is about to be punished for stealing rations, Ryan discovers he was stealing medicine, which Fincham had ordered be stashed for a future escape attempt. Ryan orders that the drugs be dispensed as necessary.
He then shows the Italian guards the prisoners' escape tunnels in return for their Red Cross parcels, which the Italians have withheld. Battaglia doesn't keep his word, so Ryan orders the prisoners to strip and burn their filthy clothes in an effort to force Battaglia into issuing new ones. Battaglia does so, but throws Ryan into the sweat box as a punishment.
On hearing of the Italian capitulation in the war, the guards flee, leaving the camp unguarded. The British promptly put Battaglia on trial as a war criminal, and allow his second-in-command and Anglo-Italian translator, Captain Oriani, to defend him. Battaglia portrays himself as a broken man who has repudiated fascism. Ryan orders him not to be executed, but to be put in the sweat box.
Germans return and recapture the prisoners. Fincham is furious at the suggestion that Oriani has betrayed them, but when the POWs are put on the train, they find a severely battered Oriani in the prisoner carriage. Battaglia is gloating outside, and they realise they have been betrayed to the Germans by the former commandant.
The shooting by the Nazis of all sick prisoners earns Ryan the nickname "von Ryan" from the irate Fincham. However, the prisoners do manage to seize control of the train by dangerously escaping through the bottom of the carriage, climbing onto the roof, and strangling the guards with improvised garrotes. After taking control of the roof, they jump on the remaining guards at the next stop, capturing the German commander of the train, Major von Klemment, and his Italian mistress, Gabriella.
Oriani persuades the Italian locomotive engineer to help. A German-speaking Allied chaplain, Captain Costanzo, is enlisted to impersonate the German commander to ensure their passage through the next station -- Florence.
Unfortunately, a German troop train is right behind them. And they realize that the troop train and this prisoner train are headed towards Innsbruck in Nazi-controlled Austria. Ryan and the prisoners manage to switch their train at Bologna onto a different line while the troop train continues its usual route to Innsbruck.
Von Klemment and Gabriella are kept bound and gagged. Fearing they will be murdered once the prisoners leave the train, Gabriella conceals a piece of a broken drinking glass to cut their bonds. At a water stop, von Klemment escapes and shoots Orde, but he is shot as well.
Ryan, in a German uniform, must reluctantly kill Gabriella as she escapes to prevent her from betraying his men. Ryan makes involuntary eye contact with a nearby Italian youth who had previously been hurling insults at what he thought were Germans. Now the youth silently stares with contempt at Ryan.
By this time, the Germans have wind of the ruse. The prisoners attempt to escape in one siding stop, but are foiled by an Allied air attack on the town. They flee under fire.
The engineer and Oriani have an idea: The next stop is Milano. If they could disable the signals at one key tower in the Central Station, they could also disable the controls and track displays at the station, confusing the Germans. At the same time, they could re-route the train up to neutral Switzerland through manual switching without being noticed.
The Germans, though, are waiting for them at Milano Centrale. Ryan and his men successfully disable one electric interlocking tower and switch the train off on the key line to Switzerland. The train is attacked by three German fighter aircraft. One plane is shot down, but the other destroys a section of track at a key bridge.
The POWs replace the damaged track in front of them. Ryan, Fincham and the others try to hold off the German soldiers. The track is repaired and the train begins to move. Ryan and Fincham run behind it. Fincham makes it onto the train and desperately reaches back for Ryan, urging him to run faster. Ryan is shot in the back and killed by the German commander just short of the train, which then crosses into neutral Switzerland.
Cast
The original ending
In the book, Ryan survives and makes it into Switzerland with the other prisoners. At the novel's end, he bursts into laughter when he discovers that the words "VON RYAN'S EXPRESS" have been painted by one of the prisoners on the outside of the train. (The movie does not retain this incident.) In addition, the book delves into the character of Ryan, whose carelessness as an air cadet cost the life of a fellow cadet. Sinatra insisted on his character being killed at the end as a token of believability and to "atone" for his shooting Gabriella.
Production
Von Ryan’s Express was a project keenly undertaken by 20th century Fox, which was still financially reeling after the extravagance and critical bashing of Cleopatra. Fox, in a bid to prove that they were still able to make films on an epic scale, shot extensively on location in Europe and built a full-scale prison camp as opposed to shooting on a backlot.
Rumours of a personality clash between star Frank Sinatra, who was flown by helicopter to the set, and director Mark Robson, were seemingly not enough to dampen the making of a film that was shot with relatively little trouble, although Sinatra’s insistence on the ending of the film being altered put an end to a proposed sequel that Fox had in mind.
Sinatra also insisted the film be shot in Panavision rather than Fox's CinemaScope.[1]
Special Effects
Von Ryan's Express achieved verisimilitude via a combination of aeroplanes, trains, and wheeled vehicles photographed on location and the occasional model and prop; the Messerschmitt fighters were Bf-108s painted and marked as Luftwaffe aircraft.[citation needed] Moreover, the film was nominated for a Best Special Effects academy award in 1966, while the Motion Picture Sound Editors also nominated the film for Best Sound Editing in a Feature Film.
Critical and commercial success
The critical reception for Von Ryan's Express was strong, Variety noting that, "Mark Robson has made realistic use of the actual Italian setting of the David Westheimer novel in garmenting his action in hard-hitting direction and sharply-drawn performances."[2] Frank Sinatra's daughter Nancy noted in her biography of her father that his performance here fuelled speculation of another Academy Award nomination.
Praise came internationally as well as nationally, Time Out London called the film a "ripping adventure" that was "directed with amused panache by Robson, and helped no end by a fine cast...",[3] while the BBC's TV, film and radio listings magazine The Radio Times described it as "a rattlingly exciting Second World War escape adventure, with a well-cast Frank Sinatra..."[4]
With a gross $17,111,111 at the North American box-office, equating to $7,700,000 taken in box office rentals, Variety ranked Von Ryan’s Express as the 10th highest grossing film of 1965 additionally, this would be Sinatra’s highest grossing and biggest earning film of the decade.
Channel 4 ranked Von Ryan's Express number 89 on their list of 100 Greatest War Films, commenting, " A ripping yarn culminating in a wild train dash through [Italy], with director Mark Robson cranking up the tension and releasing it with some excellent action set-pieces."[5]
The title of the film was alluded to a few years later in the world of baseball when pitcher Nolan Ryan's fastball was dubbed "Ryan's Express".
References
External links
