The Narrow Margin

Fleischer has yet to have his critical day: with Blake Edwards, he is one of the last surviving classically trained American directors. Here is classic pulp premise (cops escorting hoodlum's widow to Grand Jury trial with a pack of killers bent on eliminating her before she talks); essence of B movie casting (the malevolently magnificent McGraw and the sleazy siren Windsor); and classic setting (transcontinental express train with every passenger, every stop a possibly malign menace). Teeming with incident, it is fashioned into a taut, breathtakingly fast and highly suspenseful 'sleeper' par excellence.