| Night Train To Paris | |
| Director: | Robert Douglas |
| Producer: |
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| Starring: | |
| Music: | Kenny Graham |
| Cinematography: | Arthur Lavis |
| Editing: | Robert Winter |
| Studio: | Lippert Pictures |
| Distributor: | 20th Century Fox |
| Runtime: | 65 minutes |
| Country: |
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| Language: | English |
Night Train to Paris is a 1964 British-American spy film directed by Robert Douglas and starring Leslie Nielsen, Aliza Gur and Dorinda Stevens.[2] [3]
Former OSS officer Alan Holiday is visited by Catherine Carrel on New Year's Eve, Carrel says she's a close friend of Jules Lemoine, also a former OSS officer who served with Holiday during the war.
Lemoine wants Holiday to go to Paris on a secret mission: to deliver a reel of tape, containing defense information while Lemoine keeps a fake reel to deceive enemy agents. When Lemoine is killed and the fake tape stolen, Holiday goes to Paris.
He poses as an assistant to photographer Louis Vernay, and they take three models along to maintain the ruse.[4]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Weak invention, mundane playing and nondescript direction make this a very flat-footed espionage melodrama. The opening scenes in London, and the cat-and-mouse finale, sandwich a lengthy middle section aboard the train, where the setting is not well exploited and the raucous party revelry is allowed to become too repetitive in order to spin out a meagre plot. The more lively climax, with its moderately unexpected twist, is insufficient compensation for the film's prevailing mediocrity."[5]
The Film Daily wrote: "Night Train to Paris is a neat, little suspense film that will be a fine addition to any double bill. Its length probably automatically relegates it to second feature".[6]
In The New York Times, Howard Thompson wrote: "Night Train to Paris — there's an intriguing title. But, believe us, this thumpingly mediocre little suspense melodrama that drifted into neighborhood theaters yesterday can go back to where it came from. There have been worse plots but few more familiar...starchy dialogue is neatly matched by Robert Douglas’s flat-footed direction...The most attractive thing about the whole picture is a nifty blonde named Dorinda Stevens. The woman can act, too, which is more than can be said for most of the others."[7]