Il treno crociato

Inside a military train convoy, the lieutenant Alberto Lauri (Rossano Brazzi), sick, remember the relationship with Clara (María Mercader),a post office girl, and the opposition of his mother (Ada Dondini), horrified with his choose. Clara had a baby without marriage, and both were refused by Alberto's mother. When the train stops quickly in the city of Alberto, his faithful subordinate (Carlo Romano) leaves them to meet Alberto, that just recover of a blood transfusion. Perhaps from the cycle of war films produced in Italy during fascism that one be the most melodramatic. Its maudlin situations are in the extreme opposite of "La Nave Bianca" (1941), by Roberto Rossellini and its fiction built upon a documentary style. Although the first minutes could provoke a mistaken hypothesis of a more traditional war movie, that is far from be the case. All the apparent Army and medical hierarchy and prescriptions are nullified by the generous and paternalist official, a figure very common in this cycle of movies, represented here by Captain Bianchi. This movie seems more a compensatory fantasy for its white lead character. All important things rounds about him: the paternalist Captain, the idiotic subordinate, the unrestricted love of woman and mother. All dramatic or comic element that aren't linked to him, like the guy that get his dog with himself in a clandestine way or even the sister that is killed in the air attack to the convoy (in a involuntary humorous scene) are superfluous. Their tricks are very precarious, simulating the convoy advances with a very fake toy train and amateur props.