Peking Express

Put a bunch of very different people together in close confinement and you're off to the dramatic races. It can be brilliant (LOST HORIZON), it can be exciting (THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY), it can be dumb (THE CASSANDRA CROSSING), and it can be somewhere in between, as in this picture. The scene is the Peking Express, a train that runs between Shanghai and Peking, a truly Asian counterpart of the very European Orient Express. Cotten, a doctor attached to the United Nations, is en route to perform a delicate operation on an underground leader fighting against the Communists. Calvet, one of Cotten's former lovers, just happens to be on the train as well. Also on board a...