Night Train (1959 film)

Night Train, also known as The Train, or Baltic Express, is a 1959 Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz and starring Zbigniew Cybulski, Lucyna Winnicka and Leon Niemczyk.

Plot

Two strangers, Jerzy and Marta, accidentally end up holding tickets for the same sleeping chamber on an overnight train to the Baltic Sea coast; and reluctantly agree to share the 2-bed single-gender compartment. Also on board is Marta's spurned lover Staszek, unwilling to accept her decision to break up after a short term affair, and leave her alone. When the police enter the train in search of a murderer on the lam, rumors fly and everything seems to point toward one of the main characters as the culprit.

Cast

Lucyna Winnicka - Marta
Leon Niemczyk - Jerzy
Zbigniew Cybulski - Staszek
Teresa Szmigielówna - Lawyer's Wife
Helena Dąbrowska - Train Controller
Ignacy Machowski - Passenger
Roland Głowacki - Murderer
Aleksander Sewruk - Lawyer
Zygmunt Zintel - Passenger Suffering from Insomnia
Tadeusz Gwiazdowski - Train Controller
Witold Skaruch - Priest
Michał Gazda - Passenger Flirting with Lawyer's Wife
Zygmunt Malawski - Policeman

Reception

Night Train received numerous awards including the Georges Méliès award, and the Best Foreign Actress at the 1959 Venice Film Festival awarded to Lucyna Winnicka for her role as Marta in Night Train. American filmmaker Martin Scorsese recognized the film as one of the masterpieces of Polish cinema and in 2013 he selected it for screening alongside films such as Ashes and Diamonds, Innocent Sorcerers, Knife in the Water and The Promised Land in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema festival of Polish films.