This small budget Cold War film did not get that much notice at the time of its release in 1963. One of its stars Sean Flynn was to disappear in the Vietnam jungles while acting as a war correspondent like his father Errol Flynn did for a time during the Spanish Civil War. Who knows what kind of film career Sean Flynn might have had if he had lived. As actor when working with one of the great thespian talents of the last century Jose Ferrer, young Flynn came off a distinct second best. But he was good looking enough and his part called for nothing more than to look and be an earnest young army lieutenant who gets sucked into a Cold War diplomatic crisis over a refugee played by Han Joachim Schmiedel who sneaks aboard a train under Flynn's command.
Schmiedel wants to be reunited with his family which was in West Germany before the Berlin Wall was built. He sneaks aboard the train unbeknownst to all especially young Lieutenant Flynn by civilian nurse Nicole Courcel who works for our military. When he's discovered at the Russian checkpoint we have a diplomatic crisis. We also have a well known and most cynical reporter Jose Ferrer on the train as well. Ferrer gives a good interpretation in a role that had he been alive would have been perfect for Humphrey Bogart.
As the story unfolds everyone even the Russians would like this incident to just go away, but a few people with the best of intentions keep fouling up the proceedings.
Playing the role of another train passenger, a woman who married an American so she could obtain her freedom is Christiane Schmidtmer. She's better known for playing the statuesque blond bimbo who was accompanying Jose Ferrer on the Ship Of Fools. I would not be surprised if Ferrer helped get her that part in the Stanley Kramer classic.
Small budget it is, but Stop Train 349 is a sincerely made and decent film of that time in history post the Berlin Wall. It's a curiosity and a memoir of the short career of Sean Flynn.
