Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)
Sleeping Car to Trieste is a 1948 British comedy thriller film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Jean Kent, Albert Lieven, Derrick De Marney and Rona Anderson. It was shot at Denham Studios outside London. The film’s sets were designed by the art director Ralph Brinton. It is a remake of the 1932 film Rome Express.
Director – John Paddy Carstairs
Writers – Allan MacKinnon (screenplay), Clifford Grey (from an original story)
Cast –
Jean Kent as Valya
Albert Lieven as Zurta
Derrick De Marney as George Grant
Paul Dupuis as Inspector Jolif
Rona Anderson as Joan Maxted
David Tomlinson as Tom Bishop
Bonar Colleano as Sergeant West
Finlay Currie as Alastair MacBain
Grégoire Aslan as Poirier, the chef (as Coco Aslan)
Alan Wheatley as Karl/Charles Poole
Hugh Burden as Mills
David Hutcheson as Denning
Claude Larue as Andrée
Zena Marshall as Suzanne
Leslie Weston as Randall
Michael Ward as Elvin
Eugene Deckers as Jules
Dino Galvani as Pierre
George De Warfaz as Chef du Train
Gerard Heinz as Ambassador
Watch “Sleeping Car to Trieste” (1948)
Plot
The setting is almost entirely on a train travelling between Paris and Trieste after World War II. Two rather mysterious people, Zurta (Albert Lieven) and Valya (Jean Kent), are at ease in sophisticated society. Zurta steals a diary from the safe of an embassy in Paris while they are guests at a reception there, killing a servant who walks in on the robbery. Poole, an accomplice, is passed the diary, but he double-crosses them and attempts to escape with it on the Orient Express. Just in time, Valya and Zurta board the train.
They start looking for Poole, who seeks to conceal himself and the diary. Other travellers become involved, including a US Army sergeant with an eye for the ladies, an adulterous couple, an idiot stockbroker, a wealthy, autocratic writer and his brow-beaten secretary, an ornithologist, and a French police inspector. Staff and other passengers provide light-hearted scenes. The diary passes through the hands of several people while the police investigate a mysterious death.