Von Ryan's Express

Get on board with Frankie Blue Eyes.

Out of 20th Century Fox, Von Ryan's Express is directed by Mark Robson & stars Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard. It's adapted by Wendell Mayes & Joseph Landon from the novel by David Westheimer. William H. Daniels is on photography and Jerry Goldsmith provides the score. Contary to what some sources say, this is not filmed in Panavision, it is filmed in Fox's trusted CinemaScope in De Luxe Color. Unless the opening credits are telling lies that is!

Italy, August 1943. With the Allies poised to strike, the Germans seize control of Italy. So the war Weary Italian nation fought on as a prisoner of the German armies.

Reeling from the critical kicking and gargantuan financial whack of "Cleopatra", 20t...

"Col. Ryan" (Frank Sinatra) arrives at an Italian POW camp to find it's mainly British occupants at loggerheads with the Commandant "Battaglia" (Adolfo Celi). It seems his brutality led to the death of their former CO and now "Maj. Fincham" (Trevor Howard) is out for blood! "Ryan" is a more calculating man, though, and that initially elicits hostility from the men - hence the "von Ryan", but his patience pays off and soon he is able to lead the whole lot of them on an audacious escape attempt that could see them all make it to safety. With the Nazis and their former persecutor in hot pursuit, they manage to commandeer a train and now they must use their guile and the unique skills of padre "Costanzo" (Edward Mulhare) to blag their way throu...

Escaping the Germans by train in Italy

A captured American colonel (Frank Sinatra) takes command of the POWs at an Italian camp in 1943. He conflicts with the rigid Brit major (Trevor Howard) as the Allies soon land in Selerno. The opportunity eventually surfaces to take command of a train and possibly escape north. Sergio Fantoni plays an Italian captain who teams up with them.

"Von Ryans Express" (1965) was based on the book by David Westheimer, who himself was a navigator in a B-24 shot down over Italy at the end of 1942 wherein he ended up a prisoner in Stalag Luft III. While The Bridge on the River Kwai concerned a POW camp in Burma and The Great Escape concerned one in Poland, the camp here is in Italy. Thankfully, it onl...