''Avalanche Express'' is a 1979

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

adventure

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

starring

Lee Marvin Lee Marvin (born Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr.; February 19, 1924August 29, 1987) was an American film and television actor. Known for his bass voice and premature white hair, he is best remembered for playing hardboiled "tough guy" characters. Alt ...

, Robert Shaw,

Maximilian Schell Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was an Austrian-born Swiss actor, who also wrote, directed and produced some of his own films. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1961 American film '' Judgment at Nuremberg'', ...

, and Linda Evans and produced and directed by Mark Robson. The plot is about the struggle over a defecting Soviet general. The screenplay by Abraham Polonsky was based on a 1977 novel by Colin Forbes. It was the last film for both Shaw and Robson, who each died in 1978.

Plot

Soviet general Marenkov ( Robert Shaw) decides to defect to the West and CIA agent Harry Wargrave (

) leads the team that is to get him out. Wargrave decides that Marenkov should travel across Europe by train, on the fictional "Avalanche Express". The idea is to lure the Russians into attacking the train and thus discover who their secret agents in Europe are. Consequently, during the train journey they must survive both a terrorist attack and an avalanche, all planned by KGB spy-catcher Nikolai Bunin (

Cast

as Col. Harry Wargrave * Robert Shaw as Gen. Marenkov (Voice later dubbed by Robert Reitty.) * Linda Evans as Elsa Lang *

as Col. Nikolai Bunin *

Joe Namath Joseph William Namath (; ; born May 31, 1943) is a former American football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New York Jets. He played college fo ...

as Leroy *

Horst Buchholz Horst Werner Buchholz (4 December 1933 – 3 March 2003) was a German actor who appeared in more than 60 feature films from 1951 to 2002. During his youth, he was sometimes called "the German James Dean". He is perhaps best known in English- ...

as Julian Scholten *

Mike Connors Krekor Ohanian (August 15, 1925 – January 26, 2017), known professionally as Mike Connors, was an American actor best known for playing private detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series ''Mannix'' from 1967 to 1975, a role which earne ...

as Haller * Claudio Cassinelli as Col. Molinari * Kristina Nel as Helga Mann * David Hess as Geiger *

Günter Meisner Günter Meisner (18 April 1926 – 5 December 1994) was a German film and television character actor. He is remembered for his several cinematic portrayals of Adolf Hitler and for his role as Arthur Slugworth in ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Fa ...

as Rudi Muehler *

Sylva Langova Sylva Langova (31 August 1921 – 15 January 2010) was a Czech actress who from the late 1940s lived and worked in England. Partial filmography Film Television References External links * 1921 births 2010 deaths Actors from Plzeň ...

as Olga *

Cyril Shaps Cyril Leonard Shaps (13 October 1923 – 1 January 2003) was an English actor of radio, television and film, with a career spanning over seven decades. Early radio Shaps was born in the East End of London to Polish-Jewish parents; his father ...

as Sedov *

Vladek Sheybal Vladek Sheybal (born Władysław Rudolf Zbigniew Sheybal; 12 March 1923 – 16 October 1992) was a Polish character actor, singer and director of both television and stage productions. He was well known for his portrayal of the chess grandmast ...

as Zannbin * Arthur Brauss as Neckermann * Sky du Mont as Philip John *

Richard Marner Richard Marner (born Alexander Pavlovich Molchanov, russian: Александр Павлович Молчанов, translit=Aleksandr Pavlovič Molčanov; 27 March 192118 March 2004) was a Russian-British actor. He was probably best known for h ...

as General Prachko * Arnold Drummond as Commissar (Maxim Gorky) * Paul Glawion as Alfredo * Dan van Husen as Bernardo

Production problems

During production in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

, both director Mark Robson and starring actor Robert Shaw died of heart attacks within weeks of each other.

Monte Hellman Monte Hellman (; born Monte Jay Himmelbaum; July 12, 1929 – April 20, 2021) was an American film director, producer, writer, and editor. Hellman began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC TV, and made his directorial debut with the ho ...

was brought in to finish the direction and Gene Corman (

Roger Corman Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...

's brother) was called in to complete Robson's duties as producer.

Robert Rietti Robert Rietti, (born Lucio Rietti; 8 February 1923 – 3 April 2015), was an actor, and Oscar-nominated director of Anglo-Italian descent. With over 200 credits to his name, he had a highly prolific career in the American, British and Ita ...

was hired to re-record Robert Shaw's dialogue in the opening scene, as it was decided to redo that scene in Russian with English subtitles instead of having the Russians speak broken English. As a consequence, for continuity, all of Shaw's dialogue throughout the film was re-recorded by Rietti. Hellman, Corman and Rietti were not credited for their work, but the film's end credit contains a note stating: "The producers wish to express their appreciation to Monte Hellman and Gene Corman for their post production services."

Critical reaction

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' criticized the film's tackiness, suggesting it was copied from ''

The Cassandra Crossing ''The Cassandra Crossing'' is a 1976 disaster thriller film directed by George Pan Cosmatos and starring Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, Burt Lancaster, Lee Strasberg and O. J. Simpson about a disease-infected Swedish ...

'' and likening it to the work of exploitation filmmaker

Lew Grade Lew Grade, Baron Grade, (born Lev Winogradsky; 25 December 1906 – 13 December 1998) was a British media proprietor and impresario. Originally a dancer, and later a talent agent, Grade's interest in television production began in 19 ...

, criticising the actors as appearing "at a loss". ''Time Out'' called it "awful", "formulary" and "hammily acted" but explained its curious editing as resulting from the production problems. The ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves ...

'' gave it 2/5 stars, noting its disjointed quality but praising the acting and snowy special effects. Leonard Maltin's annual publication "TV Movies" gives the film a BOMB rating.

References

External links