Confined spaces make good environments for suspenseful thrillers, as many filmmakers have noticed. Trains in particular have been featured in many memorable scenes in films like Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951), Buster Keaton's silent comedy classic The General (1926) and, say, Ryûhei Kitamura's modern horror piece The Midnight Meat Train (2008). A noiry example of a movie set almost entirely on a train would be Richard Fleischer's crime tale The Narrow Margin from 1952.
The film tells the story of a Detective Sergeant Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) who has been assigned to escort an important female witness, a mob boss's widow named Frankie Neal (Marie Windsor), to a courthouse in another town to testify against her late husband's criminal accomplices. The sprawling criminal organization has no plans of allowing her to reach the destination alive, something that Mrs. Neal is well aware of. As the train seems to be full of potential hit men and other suspicious figures, Sgt. Brown is put under heavy stress when trying to keep his target alive when the long journey on rails begins.
The narrow corridors and compartments of the train automatically thicken the atmosphere and limit possible camera angles and movements dramatically, which of course fits in formidably with theme of increasing anxiety in Sgt. Brown's mind. Besides having to deal with the superficially tough but truly scared Mrs. Neal, Brown is also troubled by his intense feelings of guilt about the unfortunate fate of his colleague at the beginning of the movie and the constant uncertainty about other passengers' motives and identities. Is the annoyed fat man (Paul Maxey) a mere traveler? How to get rid of the nosy little boy and his attractive mother (Jacqueline White)? Maybe she could be used in a scheme to outwit the villains or would that be too immoral?
The questions above, along with others, keep the audience guessing throughout the story until the big plot twist near the end. Brown's working methods obviously don't conform to highly realistic conventions of police work but a stylized movie naturally allows some artistic license regarding the antics of the characters. Charles McGraw delivers a perfectly adequate performance in the lead role but in my opinion many supporting actors come across as far more memorable than him. To name a few, at least Marie Windsor as the feisty Mrs. Neal, David Clarke as the hard-hitting bad guy Kemp and Peter Virgo as the ruthless lead schemer Densel can be mentioned. However, the young Gordon Gebert is very irritating as the little boy Tommy, although he is not the first or last kid actor to nearly ruin a movie with loud squeaking and overt enthusiasm.
Besides the camera work, the lack of non-diegetic music also heightens the tension neatly by not distracting the audience from the overhanging stress in scenes like the rough fistfight in a closed train compartment. In addition, I liked the use of reflections on the train windows as a one more way for the filmmakers to work their way around the limitations of the narrow spaces on the set. However, the movie is not without its flaws, or shall we say 'things I would have liked another way'. Namely, I would have wanted to get to know the characters better, even if more fleshing out would have increased the runtime from the compact 71 minutes. Additionally, as in many noirs, the very ending feels a little too easily resolved and light considering the plot twists we have seen just before it – such lackluster endings may have something to do with the strict film censorship of the era that always demanded a positive conclusion where crime never pays.
Anyway, I think the good things ultimately outweigh the bad ones. The suspense and the sensation of stress are skilfully created and the characters are well portrayed, so the film easily belongs among the better noirs I have seen. Besides noir buffs, I can also recommend The Narrow Margin to train enthusiasts and thriller fans in general.
The film tells the story of a Detective Sergeant Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) who has been assigned to escort an important female witness, a mob boss's widow named Frankie Neal (Marie Windsor), to a courthouse in another town to testify against her late husband's criminal accomplices. The sprawling criminal organization has no plans of allowing her to reach the destination alive, something that Mrs. Neal is well aware of. As the train seems to be full of potential hit men and other suspicious figures, Sgt. Brown is put under heavy stress when trying to keep his target alive when the long journey on rails begins.
The narrow corridors and compartments of the train automatically thicken the atmosphere and limit possible camera angles and movements dramatically, which of course fits in formidably with theme of increasing anxiety in Sgt. Brown's mind. Besides having to deal with the superficially tough but truly scared Mrs. Neal, Brown is also troubled by his intense feelings of guilt about the unfortunate fate of his colleague at the beginning of the movie and the constant uncertainty about other passengers' motives and identities. Is the annoyed fat man (Paul Maxey) a mere traveler? How to get rid of the nosy little boy and his attractive mother (Jacqueline White)? Maybe she could be used in a scheme to outwit the villains or would that be too immoral?
The questions above, along with others, keep the audience guessing throughout the story until the big plot twist near the end. Brown's working methods obviously don't conform to highly realistic conventions of police work but a stylized movie naturally allows some artistic license regarding the antics of the characters. Charles McGraw delivers a perfectly adequate performance in the lead role but in my opinion many supporting actors come across as far more memorable than him. To name a few, at least Marie Windsor as the feisty Mrs. Neal, David Clarke as the hard-hitting bad guy Kemp and Peter Virgo as the ruthless lead schemer Densel can be mentioned. However, the young Gordon Gebert is very irritating as the little boy Tommy, although he is not the first or last kid actor to nearly ruin a movie with loud squeaking and overt enthusiasm.
Besides the camera work, the lack of non-diegetic music also heightens the tension neatly by not distracting the audience from the overhanging stress in scenes like the rough fistfight in a closed train compartment. In addition, I liked the use of reflections on the train windows as a one more way for the filmmakers to work their way around the limitations of the narrow spaces on the set. However, the movie is not without its flaws, or shall we say 'things I would have liked another way'. Namely, I would have wanted to get to know the characters better, even if more fleshing out would have increased the runtime from the compact 71 minutes. Additionally, as in many noirs, the very ending feels a little too easily resolved and light considering the plot twists we have seen just before it – such lackluster endings may have something to do with the strict film censorship of the era that always demanded a positive conclusion where crime never pays.
Anyway, I think the good things ultimately outweigh the bad ones. The suspense and the sensation of stress are skilfully created and the characters are well portrayed, so the film easily belongs among the better noirs I have seen. Besides noir buffs, I can also recommend The Narrow Margin to train enthusiasts and thriller fans in general.