Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 67

Jacques Tourneur’s Films

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cameras that were as then unknown to Hollywood filmmaking (Higham 49-63).
The cinematography and location shooting are key factors in the success of the
film, adding to its sense of realism and authenticity.
The influence of the documentary style, which Tourneur would have been
familiar with from his MGM days (when he worked on several short documenta
ries), is also apparent through the use of a narrative voice-over. Just like the voice
over used in many documentaries and newsreels, Berlin Express" narrator gives us
facts, dates and procedural detail. Unlike the voice-over used in documentary
films and newsreels, Tourneur’s narrator offers an often ironic commentary on the
action of the film and on the state of post-war Germany. One immediately learns
that the Allied victory may not be complete. This is announced by the cynical,
world weary tone of the narrator, who introduces us to the devastated city of Frank
furt, thus: “Something like peace was supposed to be here.” There is also a with
holding of information from the viewer, best exemplified early in the film when all
the detai ls of the passengers on the train are given, with the exception of Schmidt.
This withholding of information not only builds up suspense, but also moves the
film away from strict reliance on an authoritative voice-over, a device also adopted
by Tourneur in some of his early short documentaries. It is perhaps appropriate
that the voice of authority is discarded by Tourneur in this film. As some critics
have pointed out, Berlin Express could be read as a typically “Toumeuresque”
exploration of fear and the coexistence of the rational world with an older, more
mysterious world of duplicity (Henry 9). In some respects this is true of the way
Berlin Express pits the new world rationalism of American Robert Lindley (Rob
ert Ryan), against the mysteriousness of the old world, a world that is reluctant to
give up its secrets and its autonomy. Although the Americans may have some
control over Germany, the resentment felt, not only by the Germans, but also by
the Soviets, the French, and the English, always threatens to erupt. Unlike Wilder’s
A Foreign Affair and the earlier propaganda films that pitted the Allies against the
Germans, Berlin Express portrays the general lack of unity between the Allies.
This is a much more honest film than Days o f Glory, where the similarities, rather
than differences, between the Americans and the Soviets had been stressed. It may
be argued that critical assessments of Days o f Glory have been unavoidably af
fected by hindsight. This is undoubtedly true, yet Days o f Glory does suffer from
a reluctance to discuss, at any level, the complexities of the situation it is depict
ing. This reluctance is not apparent in Berlin Express, and this is one of the rea
sons that it is a superior film.
Ostensibly, the film seems to endorse American involvement in the po
litical and socio-economic structures of Germany. After all, Lindley, the Ameri
can, is ultimately the one who saves Dr. Bernhardt (Paul Lukas), the representative
of European liberal thought (a character apparently modeled after Thomas Mann).