Von Ryans Express (1965) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

Ryan, an American POW, leads his fellow prisoners on a dangerous escape from the Germans in Italy. Having seemingly made errors of judgement, Ryan has to win the support of the mainly British soldiers he is commanding.
Frank Sinatra ... Colonel Joseph L. Ryan
Trevor Howard ... Major Eric Fincham
Raffaella Carrà ... Gabriella (as Raffaella Carra)
Brad Dexter ... Sergeant Bostick
Sergio Fantoni ... Captain Oriani
John Leyton ... Orde
Edward Mulhare ... Captain Costanzo
Wolfgang Preiss ... Major Von Klemment
James Brolin ... Private Ames
John Van Dreelen ... Colonel Gortz (as John van Dreelen)
Adolfo Celi ... Battaglia
Vito Scotti ... Italian Train Engineer
Richard Bakalyan ... Corporal Giannini
Michael Goodliffe ... Captain Stein
Michael St. Clair ... Sergeant Major Dunbar
Director: Mark Robson
Runtime: 117 mins
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059885/
Codecs:
Video : 666 MB, 797 Kbps, 29.970 fps, 544*272 (2.0:1), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 107 MB, 128 Kbps, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, CBR,
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If you've seen both The Great Escape and The Train, you'll have a rough idea of what to expect from Von Ryan's Express. An American pilot (Frank Sinatra) arrives in an Italian POW camp and finds himself the senior officer, in charge of a motley group of British prisoners under the command of Major Fincham (Trevor Howard). Sinatra and Howard clash, and eventually lead the prisoners in a daring take-over of their German prison train. With the help of a turncoat Italian officer (Sergio Fantoni) they point their loco towards neutral Switzerland.
This is all pretty implausible, but its fairly entertainingly done. Sinatra does well with a surprisingly unsympathetic character, and his tetchy relationship with Howard provides much of the enjoyment of the film. Howard's role is relatively stereotyped, but he's a good enough actor to know this and still make his character believable. Director Mark Robson and his screenwriter Wendell Mayes have an understanding of British army attitudes that's obviously influenced by too many viewings of Bridge on the River Kwai. While Howard is a military martinet and a man of principle, it's Sinatra's practicality and collaboration with the enemy which initially brings the men dividends.
However, Mayes and Robson have ensured that it's not quite as simple as all that and Sinatra is faced with some of the dilemmas of war which were explored a couple of years earlier in The Guns of Navarone, e.g. is it better to shoot an unarmed man or woman and save lives, or let them go and risk the lives of many more? Here though, screenwriter Mayes doesn't offer the easy solutions which undercut The Guns of Navarone. Sinatra's decision to let an Italian officer go free results in the death of some of his own men. Later on he's faced with the choice of shooting an unarmed woman in the back or risk compromising his escape plan.
Unlike some of its contemporaries, Von Ryan's Express isn't afraid to kill off some of its major characters, and this at least stops things from getting too predictable. Although the supporting cast includes Wolfgang Preiss, John Leyton, Michael Goodliffe and Adolfo Celi, only Edward Mulhare, as the British padre who has to impersonate a German officer, gets a chance to really shine.
Like a lot of war films of its era, some of the action scenes aren't all that realistic. When the heroes ambush a platoon of German soldiers in a tunnel, the Germans all collapse decorously to the ground as if they've just fainted. No mangled limbs or hideous death throes. It's one of those films where you suspect the Germans will get up and brush themselves off as soon as the camera stops rolling.
Like The Train though, Von Ryan's Express benefits from using real trains (this time on the Italian railways) and a minimum of model work. This allows it to stand up pretty well for modern audiences. Many of the hazards faced by Sinatra and the others will be fairly familiar to anyone who's seen The Train or Northwest Frontier, but they're all produced with enthusiasm, and handled with some skill, and screenwriter Mayes ensures that there are still a few surprises in store.
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From a slow start this build into an exciting if somewhat unrealistic war film. However, it was designed for entertainment and not to depict any remotely historical fact.
The cinematography and scenery look good and although no expert on trains, they look from the right period. The characters are not fleshed out but as this is an adventure film this lapse is not too important. Some of the main characters are also casualties by the end thus avoiding the usual Hollywood line from that period of everyone escaping without a scratch.
I'm not a big fan of Sinatra as an actor but he does well here depicting a flawed character who appears both likable and unlikeable. It is established early in the film that Col Ryan is not a career airman and has limited military experience and so it is not surprising that he makes some key mistakes although he does learn from them.
The supporting cast is good although with the exception of John Leyton far too old to have been on military service.
Not up with the very best WW2 films but well above the average.
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Told by associates that he needed to branch away from the "Rat Pack home movies" he'd been doing since The Manchurian Candidate, Frank Sinatra signed on for this 1965 POW epic that ranks as among his best films.
Colonel Joseph Ryan is shot down in Italy in August 1943, around the time of the Allied invasion of Sicily. Hidden from the Germans by Italian soldiers, Ryan winds up in a prison camp run by the sadistic Battaglia (Adolfo Celi, best known as Emilio Largo in 1965's James Bond epic Thunderball). The primary residents of the camp are the members of the Royal Army's 9th Fusilleers, headed by Major Fincham (Trevor Howard) and a few American prisoners. Fincham and the 9th Fusilleers have been waging their own private war against Battaglia, and when their commander dies (one of several trying to escape), British resistance hardens. But with Sicily on the ropes, Italy is bound to quit the war, and with malaria breaking out, Ryan, now senior among the POWs, is convinced by the other American prisoners that the camp needs to cooperate with Battaglia and get medicines and so forth.
This is the moral dilemma that begins the rocky relationship between Ryan and Fincham and his men. Ryan shows Battaglia escape tunnels dug by the POWs in exchange for medicine, bath water, and clean clothes, but is betrayed by the camp commander. So Ryan gives an audacious order, one that embarasses Battaglia (and brings humor to Captain Oriani, his XO and a officer who sympathizes with the prisoners) and leads Ryan to a sweatbox to rot away, a punishment that earns him respect by the British prisoners.
But when Italy surrenders a few days later, Fincham puts Battaglia on trial, even though, as Ryan points out, with Italy out of the war, Battaglia is now a civilian. Ryan convinces the vengeance-minded British to stuff Battaglia in the sweatbox to rot, which angers the more vengful Fincham. But they all have to put their squabbles aside as the Germans are marching into Italy.
Ryan leads the prisoners on a march across the land, but they are captured by the Germans and placed in a train for a German Stalag; making it worse, injured prisoners are slaughtered (off camera but clearly heard) and the one who betrays Ryan and Fincham turns up long enough to quietly gloat - and earn seemingly permanent hatred by Fincham toward Ryan.
But Ryan isn't through yet, as he leads a daring second escape, seizing the train, only to have to keep going north to escape detection, with their one chance being a one-way trip to neutral Switzerland.
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* Trevor Howard was second choice for Major Fincham.
* According to Producer Saul David's memoirs Jack Hawkins and Peter Finch were possibles for the part of Major Fincham
* Average Shot Length = ~5.3 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~5.4 seconds.
* The first train station, Firenze SMN or Santa Maria Novella, is the end of a spur into Florence. The train wouldn't have gone through it.