Public Domain Movies

Public Domain Movies

Free Classic Movies in the Public Domain

Menu
  • Home
  • Public Domain Movies List
    • Drama movies
    • Comedy films
    • Action movies
    • Horror movies
    • Western films
    • Thriller movies
    • Sci-Fi movies
    • Romantic movies
    • Propaganda films
    • Film Noir movies
  • Random movie
  • Android Movies App
  • Movies by email (subscribe)
Home ∼ Horror Express, 1972 starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas

Horror Express, 1972 starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas

Published by PublicDomainMovies on March 20, 2018

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3d/Horror_Express.ogv/Horror_Express.ogv.240p.webm
Horror Express, 1973 starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas Horror Express (Pánico en el Transiberiano in Spain and a.k.a. Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express), is a 1972 Spanish-British science fiction-horror film, produced by Bernard Gordon and Gregorio Sacristan, directed by Eugenio Martín, that stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Alberto de Mendoza, Silvia Tortosa, and Telly Savalas. The screenplay was written by Arnaud d’Usseau and Julian Zimet (credited as Julian Halevy). It was loosely based on the RKO Pictures film The Thing from Another World (1951), which was adapted from the 1938 Astounding Science Fiction novella Who Goes There? written by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Plot:
In 1906, Saxton (Lee), a renowned British anthropologist, is returning to Europe by the Trans-Siberian Express from China to Moscow. With him is a crate containing the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature that he discovered in a cave in Manchuria. He hopes it is a missing link in human evolution. Doctor Wells (Peter Cushing), Saxton’s friendly rival and Royal Geological Society colleague, is also on board but travelling separately. Before the train departs Shanghai, a thief is found dead on the platform. His eyes are completely white, without irises or pupils, and a bystander initially mistakes him for a blind man. A Catholic monk named Father Pujardov (Alberto de Mendoza), the spiritual advisor to the Polish Count Marion Petrovski (George Rigaud) and Countess Irina Petrovski (Silvia Tortosa), who are also waiting to board the train, proclaims the contents of the crate to be evil. Saxton furiously dismisses this as superstition. Saxton’s eagerness to keep his scientific find secret arouses the suspicion of Wells, who bribes a porter to investigate the crate. The porter is killed by the defrosted humanoid (Juan Olaguivel) within. It then escapes the crate by picking the lock.

The humanoid finds more victims as it roams the moving train. Each is found with the same opaque, white eyes. Autopsies suggest that the brains of the victims are being drained of memories and knowledge. When the humanoid is gunned down by police Inspector Mirov (Julio Peña), the threat seems to have been eliminated. Saxton and Wells discover that external images are retained by a liquid found inside the corpses’ eyeballs, which reveal a prehistoric Earth and a planetary view as seen from space. They deduce that the real threat is somehow a formless extraterrestrial that inhabited the body of the humanoid and now resides inside the inspector. Pujardov, sensing the greater presence within the inspector and believing it to be that of Satan, renounces his faith, pledging allegiance to the entity.

News of the murders is wired to the Russian authorities. An intimidating Cossack officer, Captain Kazan (Telly Savalas), boards with a handful of his men. Kazan believes the train is transporting rebels; he is only convinced of the alien’s existence when Saxton switches off the lights and Mirov’s eyes glow, revealing him to be the alien’s host. It has absorbed the memories of Wells’ assistant, a train engineer, and others aboard, and now seeks the Polish count’s metallurgical knowledge in order to build a vessel to escape Earth. Kazan shoots and kills Mirov, and the alien transfers itself to the deranged Pujardov.

The passengers flee to the freight car while Pujardov murders Kazan, his men, and the count, draining all of their memories. Saxton rescues the countess and holds Pujardov at gunpoint. Saxton, having discovered that bright light prevents the alien from draining minds or transferring to another body, forces Pujardov into a brightly lit area. The alien Pujardov explains that it is a collective form of energy from another galaxy. Trapped on Earth in the distant past after being left behind in an accident, it survived for millions of years in the bodies of protozoa, fish, and other animals. It cannot live outside a living being longer than a few moments. The alien begs to be spared, tempting Saxton with its advanced knowledge of technology and cures for diseases. Distracted by the offer, the alien resurrects the count’s corpse and attacks Saxton with it.

Saxton and the countess flee, but the alien resurrects all of its victims as zombies. Battling their way through the train, Saxton and the countess eventually reach the caboose where the other survivors have taken refuge. Saxton and Wells work desperately to uncouple the caboose from the rest of the train. The Russian government sends a telegram to a dispatch station ahead, instructing them to destroy the train by sending it down a dead-end spur. Speculating that war has broken out, the station staff switch the track points.

The alien takes control of the train as it enters the spur. Saxton and Wells finally manage to separate the caboose. The alien tries to find the brakes but fails to slow down the train. It rams through the end of spur barrier and plunges down the deep cliff and is destroyed after it hits bottom. The caboose rolls precariously to the end of the track before stopping, inches away from the cliff. The survivors quickly leave, while Saxton, Wells, and the countess gaze over the ravine and witness an inferno engulfing the train and its unearthly inhabitant.

Production:
Horror Express was filmed in Madrid between 1971 and 1972 and produced on a low budget of $300,000 with the luxury of having three familiar genre actors in the lead roles. The film was co-produced by American screenwriter/producer Bernard Gordon, who had collaborated with Martin on the 1972 film Pancho Villa (which featured Savalas in the title role).

Rumors that the train sets were acquired from the production of Doctor Zhivago (or Nicholas and Alexandra) were refuted by Gordon, who said in a 2000 interview that the model had been constructed for Pancho Villa. Filmmakers used the mock-up from Pancho Villa as the interior for all train cars during production since no further room was available on stage. All scenes within each train car were shot consecutively, the set then modified and shot for the next car. The train’s departure scene was filmed in Madrid’s Delicias railway station. The locomotive which pulls the train in that scene is a RENFE 141F, but later in the film, the locomotive seems to be an unidentified RENFE locomotive whose wheel arrangement is unclear.

Securing Lee and Cushing was a coup for Gordon, since it lent an atmosphere reminiscent of Hammer Films, many of which starred both of the actors. When Cushing arrived in Madrid to begin work on the picture, however, he was still distraught over the recent death of his wife, and announced to Gordon that he could not do the film. With Gordon desperate over the idea of losing one of his important stars, Lee stepped in and put Cushing at ease simply by talking to his old friend about some of their previous work together. Cushing changed his mind and stayed on.

Like all the Italian and Spanish films of the period, Horror Express was filmed mostly without sound, with effects and voices dubbed into the film later. Lee, Cushing and Savalas all provided their own voices for the English market.

Horror Express, 1973 starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas

By Eugene Martin (https://archive.org/details/horror_express_ipod) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Info.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
Posted in Horror movies Tagged 1972, Alberto de Mendoza, Christopher Lee, Eugenio Martín, Peter Cushing, Silvia Tortosa, Telly Savalas
← Previous Next →

Public Domain Movies

Full Classic Movies in the Public Domain. The best movies in the Public Domain

Subscribe via email

Most Watched Movies

  • Santa Fe Trail (1940) – Ronald Reagan, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (1,575)
  • Detour (1945 film) [Full Movie] (1,553)
  • Dressed to Kill, 1946 starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes (1,373)
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968) (1,223)
  • The Stranger (1946), Orson Wells directs Edward G. Robinson (1,040)
  • Last Woman on Earth, 1960 (982)
  • The Attack of the Giant Leeches – Full Movie in the Public Domain (941)
  • Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (913)
  • God’s Little Acre (film) (904)
  • Lonely Wives – full movie (761)

Search movie database:

Film Genres:

  • Action movies (33)
  • Adult films (6)
  • Comedy films (38)
  • Drama movies (48)
  • Fantasy films (12)
  • Film & Animation (4)
  • Film Noir movies (21)
  • Horror movies (30)
  • Musicals (11)
  • Propaganda films (13)
  • Romantic movies (14)
  • Sci-Fi movies (18)
  • Thriller movies (18)
  • Western films (24)

Best hotel deals:

  • New York hotels
  • London hotels
  • Tokyo hotels
  • Singapore hotels
  • Paris hotels

G Suite from Google

  • Try G Suite Business Free
  • G Suite Videos

G Suite Free:

Unlimited Surf Europe SIM

1914 1915 1916 1917 1920 1921 1922 1925 1930 1931 1932 1934 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1949 1951 1952 1959 1960 1963 aliens Basil Rathbone Bela Lugosi Buster Keaton Cary Grant Cecil B. DeMille Charlie Chan Charlie Chaplin D. W. Griffith Douglas Fairbanks Ed Wood John Wayne Lon Chaney Lon Chaney Jr. Mary Pickford Rudolph Valentino serial Sherlock Holmes silent movie Wallace Beery Zorro

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

G Suite Free:

G Suite Free

Free Public Domain Movies

Public Domain Movies

Secondary Menu

  • Home
  • Public Domain Movies List
    • Drama movies
    • Comedy films
    • Action movies
    • Horror movies
    • Western films
    • Thriller movies
    • Sci-Fi movies
    • Romantic movies
    • Propaganda films
    • Film Noir movies
  • Random movie
  • Android Movies App
  • Movies by email (subscribe)

Copyright © 2018 Public Domain Movies.

Powered by WordPress and Path. Back to Top

  • Contact
  • Hotels
  • Top Movies
  • All the actors, years and directors
  • Free movies in your email
  • Subcribe with Telegram
  • Android App Free Movies
sponsored
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.