The Narrow Margin
by Richard Fleischer
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles McGraw, Gordon Gebert, Jacqueline White, Marie Windsor, Queenie LeonardDirector: Richard Fleischer
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: George E. Diskant
Editor: Robert Swink
Producer: Stanley Rubin
Writer: Earl Felton
Writer: Jack Leonard
Writer: Martin Goldsmith
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 71 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-07-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Turner Home Ent
Movie Reviews of The Narrow Margin
Movie Review: Windsor & McGraw: 2 Film Noir Hall-Of-Famers
Summary: 5 Stars
This was the "original" Narrow Margin and, like its 1990 re-make it is excellent. This is one of those rare cases in which both the old and the new versions are top-notch......good stuff!
In fact, it's interesting to compare the two versions. In this film, there is a very unique twist as the end concerning the woman being brought to Los Angeles. It was clever.
That woman in this 1952 version also is played by perhaps the "First Lady Of Noir:" Marie Windsor. She had the best lines in the film and is outstanding at playing the tough-talking moll of this genre. (See Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" to fully appreciate more of Windsor's work.)
The film noir tough-guy male equivalent of her also stars in this film, that being Charles McGraw. Few guys ever looked and sounded better in noirs than McGraw. He and Windor were born to play in 'B' crime movies!
The short length of this film makes it a good one to watch anytime.
Summary of The Narrow Margin
Pack your bags for one of movie history's greatest trips, a nifty film noir thriller that Time deemed "worthy of being bracketed in the select group of train thrillers headed by Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes." The tracks run direct from Chicago to L.A. The OscarO-nominated* story, directed by Richard Fleischer (The Boston Strangler) and scripted by his frequent collaborator Earl Felton, zigzags with surprise turns. Film noir favorite Charles McGraw plays a cop guarding a gangster's moll (fellow genre icon Marie Windsor) as she travels west to testify before a grand jury. Also riding the Pullmans: determined hitmen who know the moll is on the train?but don't know what she looks like. All aboard!This gem of a B-picture from RKO is the kind of trim, beautifully paced movie people have in mind when asking, "Why don't they make 'em like that anymore?" Two cops have to guard a gangster's widow against assassination as she rides the Golden West Limited sleeper train from Chicago to give evidence in L.A. Soon there's only one cop (gravel-voiced Charles McGraw, usually cast as a villain), and he's finding the sharp-tongued widow (Marie Windsor in excelsis) as obnoxious as she is endangered. Nothing goes quite as you'd expect in this exemplary train thriller, which rattles and rocks toward its destination without a music track or a wasted moment. The bad guys include a most distinctive, elegantly garbed hitman (Gordon Gebert); a soft-spoken, "Be reasonable, Sergeant" negotiator (the vulpine Peter Brocco); and possibly the fat man (Paul Maxey) who keeps blocking up the train corridor at just the wrong time. Detour writer Martin Goldsmith worked on the story, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and George E. Diskant's black-and-white cinematography is as sharp as the work he was doing for Nicholas Ray around the same time. Director Richard Fleischer went on to bigger things--but he never made a better movie. --Richard T. Jameson
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