The Last Train from Madrid

Another recent movie watch was The Last Train from Madrid.

It's Madrid sometime during the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Madrid is almost under siege (the city was occupied by the Republicans, although which side is which is not mentioned), with there only being time for one more train to get out of town before the city is sealed off. Capt. Alvarez (Anthony Quinn) is going to be responsible for getting passes for people to board the train, under the command of Col. Vigo (Lionel Atwill). Meanwhile, the military authorities, desperate for men to fight the other side, are going to let non-political prisoners fight.

This is a bit of good news for Alvarez, as one of the prisoners, de Soto (Gilbert Roland) had served with him in Spanish Morocco back in the day. So when the prisoners are being transported, Alvarez is going to get de Soto sprung and a pass on the train for him. Meanwhile, de Soto has an old girlfriend in Carmelita (Dorothy Lamour) whose house he stays at and who is also trying to escape Madrid.

Then there's the American journalist Bill Dexter (Lew Ayres) who doesn't know it, but he's going to be forced onto that trian because somebody higher up doesn't like his writing. On his way back to Madrid, he runs into Maria (Olympe Bradna), whom he drives back to Madrid but who has a past she's hiding. Two other couples get involved: young soldier Juan Ramos (Robert Cummings) who deserts because he knows he's about to be sent to his death, who meets Lola (Helen Mack); and the Baroness Helene (Karen Morley), who is involved with Michael (Lee Bowman).

The titular train doesn't show up until nearly three quarters of the way through, but that ought to leave more time for the various characters' stories to be developed. The big problem for me is that the stories didn't seem so well fleshed out. That's partly because of the short running time. IMDb claims 85 minutes; Wikipedia says 78 and that was the length of the print TCM ran. With as many stories as there are, that's not really enough time for most of them to have full story arcs. It's not that The Last Train from Madrid is bad; it just needed to be treated as a 100-minute project instead of an 80-minute programmer. Quinn, in fact, is quite good this early in his career.

The Last Train From Madrid is one of those Paramount movies that Universal got the rights to back in the 1950s, which resulted in the TCM print having an odd color "Universal pay TV" screne before the Paramount titles. It also means that the movie's DVD release cam courtesy of Universal's MOD scheme. That DVD is available at Amazon, but for some reason notat the TCM Shop, even though other Universal MOD movies like the recently mentioned Lady on a Train are.