Vagone letto per Trieste

This a delightful detective thriller, made in the inimitable British post-war manner. The cast is comprised of more than a dozen unusual characters who have taken the Orient Express to Trieste. A few of them are innocent and charming, but most of them are law-breakers on one level or another, their crimes ranging from evading customs duties to adultery, theft, assault, and murder.

The plot concerns a stolen diary, but the real action is trying to figure out who is in whose compartment at any given time, because as the police move in on the murderer, the matter of timing and alibis becomes of paramount importance.

The documentary shots of the train itself are exemplary. If you are a train buff, you will greatly enjoy this crude, lumbering, noisy hunk of iron, a giant boiler on wheels, barreling down the tracks as the people inside change compartments, eat, drink, and plot their petty and grand crimes.