The Narrow Margin

Patrick Willems

This movie is 72 minutes long.

Nakul4.0

Dick Fleischer's THE NARROW MARGIN is a taut, stripped down, no-nonsense, white knuckle noir thriller, set almost entirely on a train. Holds up extremely well. Fleischer made a good use of claustrophobic train setting with great camera work and lighting. Also there's a fight sequence in the movie that makes fantastic use of early handheld camera, creating a visceral sense of presence.

theriverjordan4.0

“Narrow Margin” cuts down excess of narrative and style to a mere single passenger compartment of barely contained tension. As directed by Richard Fleischer, who would go on to bring the same nail scraping suspense to “Soylent Green,” “Margin” is a one track mind of a train-set thriller. A cop has to get a mafia boss’s informer wife from Chicago to Los Angeles. Running (and it does run) just over seventy minutes, “Margin” doesn’t waste a breath on excess baggage. Fleischer plows the vehicle along through plot bends and twists that each feel both a surprise, and completely earned. The simplicity of the stakes and conceit allow for even ‘should be obvious’ red herrings to slip by, since - they, too, appear to initially earn their place. The cast of lesser known genre stalwarts helps in this deception. It’s not as if Charles Laughton or Robert Mitchum are sidling in the shadows waiting for their cue to become significant. It’s always a shock when a side character suddenly steps in and shifts the plot along a new rail. And also, an awe so watch a roster of low key, high talent pros at work.