Rome Express
Date: 1932
Director: Walter Forde
Production Company: Gaumont British Picture Corporation
Storyline:
The theft of a famous painting leads to murder and many suspects on a luxury train speeding from Paris to Rome.
Additional Information:
Screen captures uploaded by Phil Wilkinson
Kinematograph Weekly – Thursday 4th August 1932 reports:
GARE DU NORD – Dismantling a Train. The astonishingly real French locomotive for Rome Express was acting for Walter Forde in the Gare du Nord, now dismantled. Its real steam- a handy cure for blackheads, Mr Forde informed me-was performing for the last shots in the picture. Albert de Courville has also completed There Goes the Bride using the same set.
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- Capture 1
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The Rome Express makes its way through France. The Rome Express operated between 1890 and 1969 when it was renamed after the section between Calais and Paris was withdrawn.
- Capture 2
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The Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits train passes over a double track viaduct. Likely to be second unit shot, Manuel Gurtner tells us that the 'Rome Express' that left Paris Gare de Lyon in the 1930s at 8.20 pm was hauled by one of the mighty Mountain 4-8-2 type tender locos of 241.A class, specially designed by the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (PLM) for the long climb Côte-d'Or section with the Blaisy-Bas summit between Laroche and Dijon. So here, in Manuel's opinion, we see what is likely to be stock or second unit footage of an ordinary south bound express train passing the Viaduc du Neuvon dating from 1849 with a length of 236 m, located near Plombières-lès-Dijon, Côte-d'Or.
- Capture 3
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Over the frontier, Italian Police join the train after a murder on board. Manuel Gurtner believes that this is probably Domodossola, the border station for express trains from and to Switzerland over the Simplon route. Behind the Italian Prairie 2-6-2 type tender loco of FS class Gr 685 can be recognized a 3-axle baggage car of F3ü type from the Swiss Federal State Railways (SBB). This must be stock footage from the 1920s, because Domodossola station was electrified by the SBB in 1930.
- Capture 4
- 'Now' required
As Head of the Sûreté, Monsieur Jolif questions suspects, the journey to Rome continues. A second unit shot or stock footage showing PLM engine No. 241.A.74, leaving the first of four short tunnels west of Dijon advises Manuel Gurtner.
- Capture 5
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The camera pans with the train as it passes through the second tunnel, which Manuel Gurtner tells us is near the shore of artificial Kir Lake, completed in 1964.
- Capture 6
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Rome is reached, but is this a real terminal or an impressive set? Roma Termini station found by Peter Brown who's research turned up a picture of the outside of the station in 1932 that reveals features supporting that this is not a set. https://www.romasparita.eu/foto-roma-sparita/files/2011/05/romasparita_6914.jpg (RL)