A film of two halves. The first part on the train is pretty good - intriguing, lots of suspense... I thought it was going to play out as a nice little whodunnit. The second part, with the cat-and-mouse chase across Frankfurt, was all a little pedestrian for my taste. With the exception of Ryan and Oberon, the characters are all pretty unmemorable. They kinda merge into one after a while. International alliance as one big homogeneous blob of blandness? Not what Tourneur was aiming for, I guess.

As to be expected from an RKO Picture - I've yet to see a bad one yet - it looks gorgeous in black and white, pushing its patronising propagandist roots into an intercontinental film noir where bombed out German streets and beer breweries are drenched in shadows. Sadly, as the intrusive narration demonstrates, this couldn't escape the patronising propaganda - even in the context of the time, a far more thoughtful and less grating take on the aftermath of WWII could have been taken.

The intrigue is excellent. From the close quarters of a train to the ruins of WWII there's a palpable sense of mistrust amongst the various characters and it leads to a very interesting parable about cooperation in the postwar setting. We see the conflicting interests, both personal and patriotic as background for a mystery whose urgency can only be understood in the context of the setting. At times it's too blunt, hurting the dialogue and the pacing, but mostly it's a great ride.

Very close to propaganda of the post-war variety; idealizing a collaboration of strangers from each part of the allied forces to stop an underground evil. The plot isn't much to speak of but it gets the blunt message across better than it should with a pretty wild pace - some very fine photography [on par with the best of Tourneur's work] marks it up.

Kind of a cross between The Third Man and The Narrow Margin. Tourneur's direction guarantees some wonderful scenes, especially the brewery and the bit of business with the window during the climax. And there's some fascinating location footage of war-torn Germany. However, it's all dressed up in a lot of hokey sentiment calling for international unity, topped off with heaps of corny narration. Worth a look for the fine photography, thriller elements, and some light banter between the leads.