The Narrow Margin (1952) User Reviews (117)

A dark ride that's maybe the best passenger-train thriller of them all

[bmacv · 8/10 · 8 February 2004]

Trains have it all over ships and planes when it comes to creating a microcosm. On an airplane, everybody's crammed together; nobody can sneak on or leave (except by parachute or defenestration). An ocean liner has its private staterooms and public spaces, but, again, is an island, entire onto itself. But trains stop regularly to take on and disgorge passengers, and they run along their fixed and earthbound course, with windows looking out on rivers and highways, at big cities at high noon and small towns in the dead of night. And so they've always been the preferred vehicle for suspense, with countless thrillers using the rails as their setting. One of the tautest and most toothsome, in its modest, low-budget way, is Richard Fleischer's The Narrow Margin.

It opens in Chicago, where a pair of Los Angeles police detectives are to escort the widow (Marie Windsor) of a recently slain gang leader back to the coast to testify before a grand jury. She's a hard case (`a 60-cent special...poison under the gravy'), and guarding her is a dangerous job. Sure enough, one of the cops takes a fatal bullet in the stairway of her low-rent apartment house (she shows scant sympathy). Windsor's finally smuggled aboard the train, in a Pullman car's locked compartment adjoining that of her custodian Charles McGraw. Almost certainly, one or more mobsters followed her. It's up to McGraw to smoke them out before they kill Windsor, who knows too much. But he slowly learns that some vital information has been deliberately kept from him....

Fleischer makes inventive use of the jostling in the cramped passageways – and of the all but vanished rituals of club cars and dining cars. He packs the train with seasoned character actors, notable among them Jacqueline White, Paul (`Nobody loves a fat man') Maxie, and Don Beddoe. The closely worked script, by Earl Fenton (based on a novel by Martin Goldsmith, who also penned the original material for Detour), doesn't stint on gaudy patter for them to spout (it's a moveable feast of salty epigrams).

Best of all, The Narrow Margin offers the addictive Marie Windsor her meatiest role, showcasing her tough-gal talents. Rolling her huge and extraordinary eyes, she aims her exhaled smoke like a stream of deadly gas and hard-boils her lines into hand grenades (to McGraw: `This train's headed straight for the cemetery. But there's another train coming along – a gravy train. Let's get on it.'). It's one of Hollywood's more perplexing secrets why Windsor toiled exclusively, with the possible exception of her Sherry Peatty in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, in the B-movie ghetto. But she helped make that ghetto the liveliest part of Tinsel Town.

Perhaps the best B movie of all time?

[Dire_Straits · 9/10 · 25 January 2005]

I'm a huge Charles McGraw fan. Every film he had a large part in, he excels and makes the film better.

Having seen this film 4 or 5 times, my respect for it has grown over the years.

The cinematography isn't perfect - the film probably could have benefited by staying dark and grainy as it seems to be in the early, night scenes.

The taut train scenes seem too bright, but there's nothing wrong with it, simply my preference. A darker train would have made for a more sinister film. Even so, there's plenty of excitement.

The crackling dialogue between Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor is consistently sharp. Seriously, you will have a hard time finding anything more bitter than those two. I'm not sure any other male-female could have made the dialogue (which in a 1950's way is almost corny) come off so terse, as they continuously bark at each other. Someone needs to count the number of times McGraw tells Windsor to "Shut up!".

The film has some exciting twists and turns; you'll enjoy each one.

Great story, solid performances all the way around. This is a FUN movie.

An Overlooked Classic

[ReelCheese · 9/10 · 4 September 2006]

Here's an overlooked classic that more than holds its own over five decades after its release. Two-fisted detective Charles McGraw must protect a crucial witness (Marie Windsor) on a train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. Since keeping a secret is hard, bad guys who aren't so keen on Windsor's testimony are also on board -- and will stop at nothing to silence her. Further complexities are added to an already tense situation when the hit men confuse another passenger as their target.

"The Narrow Margin" is known as a B movie, but you'd never know it from watching it. True, the film isn't flashy, but it does make the most out of everything it has. The story is original and full of twists, the suspense terrific and the acting memorable. With its creative take on what should be a simple story, and with its colorful characters and sharp direction, it's all more than a bit reminiscent of the master himself, Alfred Hitchcock. You won't regret picking this one up now that it's available on DVD.

Charles McGraw At His Best

[gerrytwo · 10 September 1999]

While director Richard Fleischer gets plenty of credit for his role in making the film noir classic "The Narrow Margin" on a shoestring budget, it is hard to imagine this picture without actor Charles McGraw in the lead role. As a tough cop escorting a witness to testify in Los Angeles, McGraw's performance is what holds the picture together. Try to think now of one actor around today who could portray a cop who is at times calculating, other times sarcastic and almost always menacing. In the Hollywood of the 1940s and 50s,Charles McGraw usually played secondary roles in A pictures. In "The Narrow Margin," McGraw shows that with a competent director, he could put on some performance as the star of a movie.

Wow

[abooboo-2 · 9/10 · 19 May 2001]

Fast, smart and tough. A real treat. Masterfully paced and scripted. Wow. Holds up very very well. This movie sucks you in from the opening credits and never lets go. It's also a bit of a mind game, with an interesting moral dilemma at its center and a beautiful plot twist towards the end. Nobody tells a hysterical dame to "shut up" quite like Charles McGraw and few femme fatales can blow cigarette smoke quite like Marie Windsor (who looks astonishingly like the present day actress Illeana Douglas). The two of them have great smoldering chemistry together. Richard Fleischer's direction is nearly flawless. A joy to watch. Can't wait to see it again. There's a lot going on in this one. By no means, a routine thriller.

One of the best B movies ever...

[JohnnyCNote · 8/10 · 17 April 2003]

The Narrow Margin is excellent. It's too bad more of our new directors have forgotten how to make a great film with a minimal budget, using instead inventive camera angles, good characters and dialog, and some surprises along the way. I really loved Marie Windsor as the mobster's wife who's going to LA to sing to the Grand Jury. She's one of the toughest broads I've ever seen! Charles McGraw does his standard tough cop role and turns in a performance that sets the standard by which all others are judged.

This is the original, and beats the heck out of the re-make.....

Great camera work. Sensational Marie Windsor. Implausible story, though.

[pzanardo · 6/10 · 23 November 2004]

"The narrow margin" is a remarkable film-noir with great merits, unfortunately marred by an implausible story.

There is a policeman (Charles McGraw) committed to protect a key witness (Marie Windsor), in severe danger of life, along a train journey. The only reasonable and likely behavior for the cop is to take some sandwiches, lock in the cabin with the witness, and sit down with a machine-gun on his lap. Of course, that would be the end of the film. So, to get a story, McGraw goes everywhere and does everything on the train, but staying with and protecting the witness. There is also a big surprise at the end. That is really unexpected. But if we think back to the previous events, this big twist makes the behavior of some characters wholly illogical.

Well, enough with the faults of the movie. The merits of this low-budgeted B-movie overcome its defects. The stylish cinematography is first-rate, and the camera-work is outstanding. The (few) action scenes are brilliant and filmed in a very original way. See, for instance the play of mirrors in the finale. Marie Windsor is sensational, and every scene with her is a treat. What a gangster moll, gutsy tough gal she is! In my opinion, she is even better here than in "The killing". Her lines are a perfect instance of cynical wisecracking. McGraw and the rest of the cast make a good job, as well. There is a good amount of suspense and no moments of bore.

Let me conclude with a somehow daring comparison. Independently by the composers, classic music of the 18th century is always beautiful. In a similar way, I think that American movies of the 1940s and early 1950s are all good: that is just a question of style, and how I love this style!

I recommend "The narrow margin", for its intrinsic merits, and to pay homage to a great season of cinema.

Perfectly written, taut edgy Film Noir!

[madbomber03 · 10/10 · 6 September 2000]

This is a fast paced and edgy film noir which could be used as a perfect example of the style. Crisp dialogue, hard characters and sarcastic humor blend perfectly to create a wonderful movie that is over before you know it. This film is really a lost treasure.

Skillful and entertaining ..... if you don't think about it

[petrelet · 6/10 · 28 March 2015]

(The big spoiler is in the last paragraph.)

My first reaction was that this was a really nice piece of film-making from the era when you could produce a 70-minute film. Imagine anyone trying to do that today! I suppose they put it on double bills with a big lobby intermission in the middle.

Anyway, without much in the way of sets except a railroad car, and no special effects, they packed the 70 minutes with story and suspense and plot twists that caught me completely off guard, for one. Marie Windsor did a great job portraying a cynical brassy mob moll whom Charles McGraw is trying to keep from getting bumped off by a gang of crooks on the train from Chicago to L.A. Some of the frames with her in close-up are just works of art.

There are a few old-time clichés, like the fearless little kid (lemme see your gun, mister!) who turned up in a lot of movies of the day, but there is a lot of good stuff, too, like heavy-duty character actor Paul Maxey, who starts off blocking a corridor in a comic bit but then does some other stuff.

So when the disc finished up on the VCR I was pretty satisfied and ready to give this movie a 7, maybe even an 8. But when I started mentally planning this review, going over the plot in my mind when I had some leisure - and bear in mind that I had a lot more time to think about the plot afterward than I did during the movie - I started brooding about some of the big plot holes and so on. Not everyone will do this, of course.

But to start off, just for example, five or ten minutes into the film, after one murder attempt, the cop reports that the killer saw his face but not Mrs. Neal, so they don't know what she looks like. And he turns out to be right. But how can that actually be true? She's the widow of a big mobster, but none of the other mob-connected people have seen her? They have limitless resources for bribery and interstate criminal teams that outnumber and outgun the police, but they can't manage to get a photograph of Mrs. Neal or even find out from any source even the most vague description of her?

That was the beginning, and after that all I could do was ask myself why didn't this person do that, and why did those people do this, and why did the police act this way, etc., and eventually the whole story unraveled in my hand like a badly knitted sweater. But I didn't realize this at the time, because I had been just carried along by the action and the performances! So maybe I should stop complaining!

But there is one other story point which left a bad taste in my mouth, which has to do with the big plot twist and the denouement. (Here's where the big spoiler is.)

Brown is a good cop, who demands a lot of himself and blames himself when his partner gets killed five minutes in, even when it wasn't really his fault that I could see. But later on, after the woman he has been guarding gets killed, he doesn't seem to have a second to spend on remorse or regrets. He and the film dismiss it instantly. It's true that by the time he finds out she is dead he has already found out that she wasn't the real Mrs. Neal, but a Chicago policewoman. But so?? Is he (are we?) supposed to care only for mob widows, not for women on the force? And it's true that she dies because of her unaccountable stupidity - "Lady, you aren't REALLY an impulsive mob moll, and nobody is around, so why do you have to play the part and listen to that stupid phonograph? Are you that addicted to jazz music?" But Brown doesn't know that. If Brown were portrayed as a rotten misogynistic guy at least it would be in character for him to dismiss the faux Mrs. Neal from his mind completely while he squires the real one off the train at the end, but he hasn't been. So it's worse than bad behavior, it's out of character. And it's just to manipulate the audience, to make us think that "Oh, no! They killed Mrs. Neal!" and then tell us a few seconds later that Mrs. Neal is really still alive - "Whew!", so the train is still on the track. And maybe they could have thought it out better with more time or money for script production, but then it would be a better movie, but they didn't and it's not. Although it looks a lot like a better movie if you don't look too close.

A near perfect little ensemble crime noir train thriller...yes!

[secondtake · 9/10 · 7 January 2011]

The Narrow Margin (1952)

A compact, beautiful, thrilling little B-movie. Everyone involved is relatively unknown. The director, Richard Fleischer, is less famous than some of his films, however, including the cult favorite, "Soylent Green" and the courtroom drama with an ending where Orson Welles bursts on the scene, "Compulsion." So this early one is clearly Fleischer's baby, and he gets clear, believable performances from a small ensemble cast.

Yes, it's a kind of ensemble film, where half a dozen people hold their own. Central is Charles McGraw as a detective guarding a witness en route from Chicago to L.A. McGraw has the benefit of being just a plain old detective, not an actor filled with character and presence, and he's great. The witness is played by Marie Windsor, and she's cutting and commanding, a terrific female lead that should have had a bigger career. The two or three bad guys are not quite caricatures, and the other cast--seemingly innocent passengers--are spot on perfect, too.

All of this might be enough, but the cinematography is so virtuosic, without showing off, it lifts the whole experience higher. George Diskant never became one of Hollywood's big names, but he had just shot two legendary films for Nicholas Ray, and was clearly poetic and tactile with his camera and lights. You sometimes won't even notice--as when the detective and the blonde walk on the platform at a station stop, the camera following them and pivoting and keeping the moving, turning couple in perfect focus. Other times the shots are just sensational, as with the fistfight in the tight confines of a cabin. The railroad car scenes are shot with palpable claustrophobia, things getting in the way in the foreground, people having to nudge and move around each other.

There are almost two parts to the movie. The first is a more classic night in the city with a noir feel, and this is the most gorgeous and vivid. You get sucked into the problem, and are surprised right away by a couple of twists. Eventually the main characters end up on the train, and another kind of movie, a cat and mouse, mixed-up identity kind of scenario, takes over. Equally interesting, and with more twists than you would think plausible.

But they are plausible. and Fleischer pulls of a real gem.

A great plot device

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 11 March 2014]

Charles McGraw with that raspy voice and rugged look was always cast as a tough guy on either side of the law. But only in The Narrow Margin was he a lead in a film.

He and partner Don Beddoe draw a tough assignment, escort mob widow Marie Windsor to Los Angeles from Chicago to turn over a list of payoffs the mob has been making to law enforcement officials. Right from the start it goes bad as Beddoe is killed just taking Windsor out of her apartment.

So McGraw has to keep an eye out on Windsor for the next few days as the train goes to Los Angeles. Strangely enough the hit men have no idea what their target looks like, but they know McGraw is now the only cop escorting so they focus on him.

Now I have to say that throughout the whole film I kept thinking this was a truly stupid idea, sending out contract killers who have no knowledge of what their target looks like. But as it turns out this was a very clever plot gimmick and there's a good reason why.

McGraw and Windsor are at their best here. Windsor is frightening as one coldhearted woman who has a secret that's the key to the whole story.

The Narrow Margin got an Oscar nomination for the writing. Deservedly so.

Great Film-Noir

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 17 January 2013]

Detective Sergeant Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) and his longtime partner Detective Sergeant Gus Forbes (Don Beddoe) are assigned to travel to Chicago to bring the mobster's wife Mrs. Frankie Neal (Marie Windsor) to testify to the grand jury in Los Angeles against the mafia. They are ambushed at Mrs. Neal's building and Forbes is murdered by a mobster wearing a coat with fur.

Brown and Neal travel by train to LA and soon the detective realizes that there are hit men hired by the mafia to kill Mrs. Neal. However, the assassins do not know how she looks like, and Brown hides Neal in Forbes' room. Brown meets Ann Sinclair (Jacqueline White) in the restaurant, who is traveling with her annoying son Tommy and his nanny, and the mobsters believe that she is Mrs. Neal. Now Brown has to protect not only the unpleasant Mrs. Neal, but also Ann from the mobsters.

"The Narrow Margin" is a great film-noir with a tense story developed in an adequate pace and an unexpected plot point in the end. The direction is perfect and the cast has solid performances. The dialogs between Brown and Mrs. Neal are tough and her character does not worth a penny. I saw the excellent remake of this movie in the early 90's ("Margin Call") with Gene Hackman and Anne Archer, but unfortunately I had never seen the original movie. Today I have had the chance and I recommend it. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Rumo ao Inferno" ("Bound to Hell")

Pzanardo hits the nail on the head with his review

[RussyPelican · 6/10 · 2 October 2007]

The plot will have you pulling the hair out of your head and yelling at McGraw (the cop who's supposed to be protecting the witness), "just stay in the room with her you moron!" Additionally, McGraw makes a tactical decision that is ethically indefensible and annoying in the context of the film. But, still, it's a fun little movie and Marie Windsor is as entertaining as all get out. She's one of the great noir tough girls.

It's true that there wouldn't be much of a plot if McGraw didn't keep leaving and putting the witness in peril. But this movie might have been even better if McGraw and Windsor had just stayed in the same room and jawed at each other for an hour.

extremely dated

[jimakros · 5/10 · 30 December 2012]

this noir is well-directed but the story is so dated and incredible that its hard to get interested in it. The story is about cops sent to transpost a mob's wife from Chicago to LA,using a train,so that she can testify against her husband.There are several things that are incredible in this story,one is that when one of the cops gets killed early-on,the other cop doesn't ask for any kind of back-up and sets to do the job alone.Then ,when he boards the train,even though he immediately realizes who the gangster is,he doesn't proceed to take any action,waiting for the man to try an attempt,he even seems afraid,when he can easily arrest the individual and disarm him any time he wants,or even order him off the train. This is the kind of plot ,and its kinda ridiculous.The gangsters are running all over the train and the cop is mostly trying to avoid them,which somehow one thinks it should be the other way round.

"...Use Your Own Sink"

[Leo-86 · 3 May 1999]

Charles McGraw plays edgy cop Walter Brown. His job is to protect a dead racketeer's wife, Mrs Neil (Marie Windsor) from the mob. She's a key witness in a grand jury probe, and also has a payoff list linking gang members to the LAPD. Most of the film's action takes place on board the train taking Brown and Neil to Los Angeles, where she will testify.In Mrs. Neil, played to perfection by Windsor, the queen of B movies, the tough talking, wise-cracking Brown meets his match. On the way to meet her, he glibly tells his partner, Gus Forbes that "She's the sixty cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Sticky poison under the gravy." When he and Forbes, both from Los Angeles, first meet her, she says, "How nice. How Los Angeles." Then looking Brown up and down, she snarls, "Sunburn wear off on the way?" My favorite wisecrack occurs after Brown has finally had enough of her wise remarks and lashes out, "You make me sick to my stomach." Her retaliation is a gem: "Well, use your own sink." Unlike the banter between Nick and Noira Charles of The Thin Man series, there's nothing the least sophisticated about the way Brown and Neil talk each other. Director Richard Fleischer uses inventive camera work, the sounds of the train rather than a music score, and the train's claustrophobic atomsphere to create and sustain tension. An RKO picture, The Narrow Margin is an unpretentious, taut low-budget thriller, a minor classic far superior to the 1990 Gene Hackman-Anne Archer remake.

Hardboiled, Intense & Very Fast Moving

[seymourblack-1 · 8/10 · 4 October 2012]

"The Narrow Margin" is a hard-hitting crime thriller which grips its audience right from the start and never lets go. In a story which is full of intrigue, danger and mistaken identities, the pace is absolutely relentless and the characters are tough and uncompromising. The atmosphere is consistently tense and the blistering dialogue is sensational. Despite its short running time and its "low budget, B-movie" status, this is a remarkably entertaining film which is also directed with above-average skill and flair.

Detective Sergeant Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) and Detective Sergeant Gus Forbes (Don Beddoe)are assigned to pick up a mobster's wife called Mrs Frankie Neale (Marie Windsor), from her apartment in Chicago and escort her to Los Angeles where she is due to testify before a grand jury. Mrs Neale is in possession of her husband's "pay-off list" and this makes her a target for the mob who are intent on ensuring that she doesn't reach L.A. alive.

Brown has nothing but contempt for Mrs Neale, so when his friend Gus is shot and killed by a mob hit-man as they're leaving her apartment building, his hostility towards her becomes even deeper and he also becomes totally disgusted by her complete lack of concern about the incident. Despite his personal feelings and the obvious dangers involved, Brown decides to go ahead and complete his mission as planned.

Detective Brown and Mrs Neale travel by train to L.A. and have adjoining compartments. During their journey, there is a continual sense that danger lurks everywhere, as both are fully aware that their lives are under threat and it's not always possible to identify which of the suspicious looking passengers are killers employed by the mob. A fat man and a little boy who are on the train are not who they first appear to be and Brown is very wary of a grim-looking character called Joseph Kemp (David Clarke). Another man attempts unsuccessfully to bribe him and Brown also gets to know an attractive blonde called Ann Sinclair (Jacqueline White) who turns out to be friendly and good-humoured. Further killings, surprises and twists then follow before the train eventually reaches its destination.

Charles McGraw as the tough cop who's permanently on-edge and Marie Windsor as the feisty, self-centred star witness are brilliant as two people who despise each other with a passion and some of the verbal exchanges between them are great. For example, when he says to her "You make me sick to my stomach" she replies "Well use your own sink and let me know when the target practice starts".

In common with many other stories where the action takes place on a train, the space within which the characters function seems to become increasingly cramped as the story proceeds and the tension grows accordingly. A variety of interesting camera angles are used to emphasise this feeling and the use of extreme close-ups and images on reflective surfaces are also used to good effect.

"The Narrow Margin" is a great piece of hardboiled entertainment which is incredibly intense, very fast-moving and definitely not to be missed.

Excellent film noir

[preppy-3 · 9/10 · 27 July 2006]

A dead mobsters wife (Marie Windsor) is going to testify against the mob. Detective Sergeant Water Brown (Charles McGraw) is hired to take her from Chicago to Los Angeles by train and protect her. There are bad guys on the train--but they don't know what she looks like. Can Brown keep her a secret all the way?

Fast (70 minutes), tight B film. A perfect example of how to shot an exciting movie in a small setting--95% of the film takes place in small train compartments. Director Richard Fleischer deserves a lot of credit for this. The script moves quickly and there's a great twist at the end (I'm almost ashamed to admit I didn't see it coming). Also a very violent fight in a compartment is a highlight. Windsor and McGraw are fine in their roles--no Academy Award performances here but they are as good in their roles as is possible.

A classic B film noir. Well worth catching. Avoid the terrible 1990 remake.

The Narrow Margin

[random_avenger · 7/10 · 2 December 2010]

Confined spaces make good environments for suspenseful thrillers, as many filmmakers have noticed. Trains in particular have been featured in many memorable scenes in films like Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951), Buster Keaton's silent comedy classic The General (1926) and, say, Ryûhei Kitamura's modern horror piece The Midnight Meat Train (2008). A noiry example of a movie set almost entirely on a train would be Richard Fleischer's crime tale The Narrow Margin from 1952.

The film tells the story of a Detective Sergeant Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) who has been assigned to escort an important female witness, a mob boss's widow named Frankie Neal (Marie Windsor), to a courthouse in another town to testify against her late husband's criminal accomplices. The sprawling criminal organization has no plans of allowing her to reach the destination alive, something that Mrs. Neal is well aware of. As the train seems to be full of potential hit men and other suspicious figures, Sgt. Brown is put under heavy stress when trying to keep his target alive when the long journey on rails begins.

The narrow corridors and compartments of the train automatically thicken the atmosphere and limit possible camera angles and movements dramatically, which of course fits in formidably with theme of increasing anxiety in Sgt. Brown's mind. Besides having to deal with the superficially tough but truly scared Mrs. Neal, Brown is also troubled by his intense feelings of guilt about the unfortunate fate of his colleague at the beginning of the movie and the constant uncertainty about other passengers' motives and identities. Is the annoyed fat man (Paul Maxey) a mere traveler? How to get rid of the nosy little boy and his attractive mother (Jacqueline White)? Maybe she could be used in a scheme to outwit the villains or would that be too immoral?

The questions above, along with others, keep the audience guessing throughout the story until the big plot twist near the end. Brown's working methods obviously don't conform to highly realistic conventions of police work but a stylized movie naturally allows some artistic license regarding the antics of the characters. Charles McGraw delivers a perfectly adequate performance in the lead role but in my opinion many supporting actors come across as far more memorable than him. To name a few, at least Marie Windsor as the feisty Mrs. Neal, David Clarke as the hard-hitting bad guy Kemp and Peter Virgo as the ruthless lead schemer Densel can be mentioned. However, the young Gordon Gebert is very irritating as the little boy Tommy, although he is not the first or last kid actor to nearly ruin a movie with loud squeaking and overt enthusiasm.

Besides the camera work, the lack of non-diegetic music also heightens the tension neatly by not distracting the audience from the overhanging stress in scenes like the rough fistfight in a closed train compartment. In addition, I liked the use of reflections on the train windows as a one more way for the filmmakers to work their way around the limitations of the narrow spaces on the set. However, the movie is not without its flaws, or shall we say 'things I would have liked another way'. Namely, I would have wanted to get to know the characters better, even if more fleshing out would have increased the runtime from the compact 71 minutes. Additionally, as in many noirs, the very ending feels a little too easily resolved and light considering the plot twists we have seen just before it – such lackluster endings may have something to do with the strict film censorship of the era that always demanded a positive conclusion where crime never pays.

Anyway, I think the good things ultimately outweigh the bad ones. The suspense and the sensation of stress are skilfully created and the characters are well portrayed, so the film easily belongs among the better noirs I have seen. Besides noir buffs, I can also recommend The Narrow Margin to train enthusiasts and thriller fans in general.

The witness protection programme just got hard boiled.

[hitchcockthelegend · 8/10 · 9 October 2008]

After finally waking herself up, a mobsters wife decides to testify against him and his organisation. As the trial draws closer she is constantly under threat of being murdered before she can spill the beans. Tough detective Walter Brown and his partner Gus Forbes are assigned to escort her safely across country via a train from Chicago to Los Angeles, but nobody can be trusted, and the threat of death is around everyone on board this speeding train.

Yes it may well be a "B" movie, but as "B" movies go this has to rank as one of the finest exponents of that particular arc. With the film taking place almost entirely on board the train, the tension sapping and claustrophobic feel is perfectly executed by director Richard Fleischer. The plot twists and turns and throws up genuine moments of surprise that thrill instead of hinder, whilst the ending doesn't cop out by pandering to the normal requisite of witness protection thrillers.

Charles McGraw is great as Brown, putting the hard into hard boiled and Jacqueline White is very precious as Ann Sinclair. Truth is, is that all the cast work well within the confines of this tightly produced picture. It was a surprise hit for RKO, where made on a small budget of under a quarter of a million dollars, it turned out to be a very profitable "B" production for the company. It wowed audiences back in the 50s and it's testament to the film's worth that today, here in the modern age, it's still being sought out and praised by movie lovers of all ages. 8/10

"This train is heading straight for the cemetery."

[brogmiller · 7/10 · 28 April 2023]

Slick production values and star names do not necessarily ensure a superior film and this is certainly true of Peter Hyam's 1990 remake of 'The Narrow Margin' from 1952.

Working within budgetary limitations and with a second tier cast, director Richard Fleischer has succeeded in turning a 'B' movie into an 'A' Film Noir.

There are few places to hide on a train and George E. Diskant's camera has used narrow corridors, cramped compartments and reflections in windows to great effect whilst the tension is maintained by Robert Swink's customarily taut editing.

The very nature of the genre requires the characters to be somewhat one-dimensional but the direct, hard-boiled, no-nonsense performances by Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor are spot on. The supporting players are capable although for this viewer at any rate the villains are more buffoonish than menacing.

Unusually for IMDb there are twice as many reviews for this than for the glossy remake which is both encouraging and gratifying.

No New York nor Los Angeles - just the claustrophobic halls of a train

[ilpohirvonen · 8/10 · 1 December 2010]

The milieus, landscapes and aesthetics of film-noir were often related to big cities and cold streets. In The Narrow Margin directed by Richard Fleischer the story is taken to train and the narrow halls of it, which perfectly furthers the compact feeling of the film. The film is very well directed and the exquisite cinematography of it reminded me of the classic The Lady Vanishes (1938) by Alfred Hitchcock, which also takes place in a train. This brief 75-minute long ride offers some really sharp noir-dialog and exciting twists till the last minute. When a mob boss dies, a police officer gets a job to escort the boss' wife from Chicago to LA to a trial. The task gets a little harder when a suspicious group of crooks join the train and are willing to do anything with regards to prevent the arrival of the woman to the trial.

Los Angeles and New York were often the big cities of film-noir, but even if big cities had a lot to do with the aesthetics of film-noir it doesn't mean that anyone didn't have the guts to try something else. Many tried to transfer the pattern of film-noir to new milieus. Nicholas Ray tried a snowy small town village in On Dangerous Ground (1953) and Ida Lupino brought film-noir to the seats of a car and deserts of Mexico in The Hitch-Hicker (1953) just to mention a few. The claustrophobic space Richard Fleischer chose in The Narrow Margin works brilliantly and the thrilling scenes are directed with care.

Many have realized what a great place a train is for excitement, murder and paranoia. As mentioned before Alfred Hitchcock made The Lady Vanishes, but he also used train as a place of suspense in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), North by Northwest (1959) and Strangers on a Train (1951). Of course when talking about trains and cinema one cannot forget the Buster Keaton masterpiece The General (1926). Train means both getting away and letting go, which is highlighted in the masterful melodrama Brief Encounter (1945) by David Lean where the motive is taken of a superior level when trains and railways turn into symbolism. The narrow margin of a train is of course quite metaphorical to the story in The Narrow Margin, but also in all the thrillers mentioned by Alfred Hitchcock. In The Narrow Margin the police officer faces challenges so tough that he is not sure can he make it through. His margin is getting more narrow and narrow, inch by inch.

The name of Richard Fleischer might not ring a bell for all of the readers so I think it's quite alright to reminds you for some of his works. He started as a b-class director but with the help of The Narrow Margin he rose to the A-class and the film even got an Oscar nomination for best writing. Before it he had already made a few film-noir such as Bodyguard (1948) and Armored Car Robbery (1950), which unfortunately are part of his 'b-class era'. But on the other hand they're still quite interesting and excellent in their on league. Nowdays Fleischer is probably more known for directing the two fantasy action movies Red Sonja (1985) and Conan The Destroyer (1984).

The Narrow Margin has its unintentional humor and clumsiness but overall it stands out as a fine piece of film-noir. It offers some excellent dialog and twists that will keep the interest of the audience till the last minute. I think the power of The Narrow Margin is in its story charged with compact emotion, the lack of film-noir clichés, the cinematography and the construction of state in the narrow halls of the train.

Very good noir/thriller, but spoiled by two huge holes in an otherwise clever plot.

[friedlandea · 6/10 · 12 January 2019]

"Narrow Margin" is a very enjoyable film, good acting all around. The direction keeps the plot moving. There's lots of tension: who is a villain in disguise; who is really what he or she seems to be? That's the virtue of the movie. It's also the downfall. It relies on its twisty plot to keep us guessing. I admit I did not anticipate that the supposed State's witness (Marie Windsor) was really an undercover policewoman. And I did suspect that the railroad dick was a member of the mobsters' gang, even after he identified himself; the mob can corrupt a railroad worker as easily as anyone else. But, when a story relies on cleverness to pull the viewer through, it ought to be sure that it is hermetically sealed - no holes in the plot that leave one annoyed or baffled.

I don't mean to be picky. I can overlook incongruities or improbabilities in a clever story. I've read Charles Dickens. "Egad, Mr. Jaggers, you mean Estella, whom I have loved from boyhood, is really the daughter of the convict I just happened to befriend, by an incredible chance, 350 pages ago and who now is revealed as my secret benefactor?" I wink at that, no problem. But here the plot twist is not implausible, it's impossible, or really twice over impossible.

Number one. We are told that the undercover policewoman's mission is to mislead the inevitable assassins and also to test out the other cops, to see whether they will betray her for a bribe. She works for the Internal Affairs division. How could the police department, her superiors, possibly have left her alone in that situation? There is absolutely no backup law enforcement on the train. What if Charles McGraw and/or his partner (no one could have anticipated he would be killed early on) had indeed succumbed to temptation? What if they failed the honesty test? Then she's a dead duck. Not possible.

Second hole. OK, by a lucky chance our undercover officer survives the test. But she knows she is still the target of a desperate gang of assassins who will kill her if they can only find her. Presumably she is a trained police operative. Why, oh why, does she keep playing her phonograph at full volume in a supposedly empty room? Is she suicidal? She does it even after she is warned - something anyone with an ounce of common sense wouldn't do. Sure enough, the bad guys hear the record-player and liquidate their target.

Holes are not unpluggable. In "War of the Worlds" (the novel), for instance, there is a huge hole, but H.G. Wells was clever enough to plug it. Why do the Martians, who are supposedly a million times more advanced than we poor earthlings, not realize that one cannot casually breathe in the atmosphere of an alien world and not run the risk of contracting a fatal alien disease? He explains it by speculating that the atmosphere of Mars contains no microbes, so the thought would not have occurred to its denizens. Here the screenwriters don't suggest any plugs. The flaws keep rankling around. If it weren't a story that goes out of its way to be clever, like "The Lady Vanishes" it wouldn't be so irritating. But it is irritating.

Wonderful Surprise!

[cstotlar-1 · 10/10 · 28 February 2011]

I've read several books and who knows how many articles about film noir and this title was never mentioned. I have no idea whatsoever why it hasn't been acknowledged as a film at the very top of its kind. The pacing is phenomenal with nothing extraneous or unnecessary and trimmed to the bone. I don't think there was even a musical score at all. It wouldn't have added anything that wasn't already there. The acting is uniformly excellent and the plot has some fascinating turns that gave me some pleasant surprises. The dialog is crisp, even ingenious at times, particularly between the policeman and he gangster's wife. This film should be studied at film schools around the world for its budget and its bang. We need more like it!

Curtis Stotlar

The twist is hard to believe...but his is one hell of a ride...

[Doylenf · 7/10 · 12 December 2006]

Thanks to some taut direction by Richard Fleischer, some incredibly tense performances from CHARLES McGRAW and MARIE WINDSOR and some very atmospheric shots of narrow passageways, dining cars and Pullman berths aboard a speeding express, NARROW MARGIN emerges as a swiftly moving melodrama sure to capture your attention from beginning to end.

The story has police officer McGraw and his buddy on the force assigned to bring Windsor from L.A. to Chicago to testify against mobsters who rubbed out her husband. She's a bitter, whining, vindictive woman with a sharp tongue who never fails to give McGraw a hard time, even after his buddy is shot and she shows no remorse.

Aboard the train, it becomes a cat and mouse game to keep her away from the assassins aboard who are intent on killing her. The plot is a tricky one and it's the twist that I find hard to believe. It rather startled me and comes so late in the story that I was nevertheless hooked until the final scene.

The cast is uniformly good, all giving completely credible performances and making this one of the most enjoyable and dangerous train rides you're ever likely to take.

Charles McGraw is impressive in his tough, street-wise way and Marie Windsor is at her most femme fatale in this tightly knit story.

Worst cop ever!

[Drusca · 4/10 · 6 March 2015]

OMG, this is a very silly movie. It should have been billed as a comedy. Honestly, this is probably the worst so called 'noir' that I've seen. It's difficult to comment on it without spoilers. The premise, revealed at the end, and the protagonist's actions defy basic logic & common sense. McGraw's character talks tough, but is such an inept & pathetic dolt, that in the real world he would, at least, get fired.

I was curious about McGraw after thinking he had a perfect face for a thug in the similarly low-budget, but superior, noir 'T-Men', and after being impressed with his performance in a supporting role in 'In Cold Blood', but 'The Narrow Margin' is definitely not on a par with those two films.