TV, Film4 (UK), Von Ryan's Express

[RailGooner]

  The 1965 classic starts at 4 pm on Film4/HD and at 5 pm on Film4 +1.

[RailGooner]

  Just reached that point in the film when they arrive at stazione Firenze S. Maria Novella. Except having just been stood in that very station a month ago, I can categorically say there are no through roads in reality. Oh no, I think I'm coming down with a case of rivet-counteritis.

[daffy]

Love this film, and read the book before it was released, but it does seem to be on one of those 'let's see how often we can show this film in a month' timetables that Film4 - and other channels - seem to do a lot lately.  At least no-one can say they didn't get a chance to watch or record it!

[stevewalker]

One of my favourite films.

I am used to films differing markedly from the book, usually to make the film more easily understandable or shorter. Often endings are changed to make them happier.

This film is a little different, in that they changed some things from the book despite it being totally unnecessary to do so. For instance, in the book, Oriani is a vicious, Nazi sympathiser who betrays them all, while Battaglia is a good guy, yet in the film, this is reversed.

Unusually, they also changed from the book's "happy" ending.  At the end of the film Ryan falls dying on the sleepers, whilst in the book, he survives and ends up laughing out loud when "Goon" Bostick paints "Von Ryan's Express" on the side of one of the trucks, prior to telling him to "police it up" before setting the empty train off back into Italy.

[Calnefoxile]

Unusually, they also changed from the book's "happy" ending.  At the end of the film Ryan falls dying on the sleepers, whilst in the book, he survives and ends up laughing out loud when "Goon" Bostick paints "Von Ryan's Express" on the side of one of the trucks, prior to telling him to "police it up" before setting the empty train off back into Italy.

SPOILER ALERT

What Ryan dies!!!!

SPOILER ALERT



Cheers

Neal.