Charles McGraw

Marie Windsor

Jacqueline White

Gordon Gebert

Queenie Leonard

David Clarke

Peter Virgo

Don Beddoe

Paul Maxey

Harry Harvey

Peter Brocco

George Chandler

Franklyn Farnum

Don Haggerty

Milton Kibbee

Walter Merrill

Harold Miller

Bess Flowers

Richard Fleischer

Earl Felton

Robert Swink

Stanley Rubin

George E. Diskant

Martin Goldsmith

Jack Leonard

William Cameron Menzies

Darrell Silvera

Clem Portman

Albert S. D'Agostino

Jack Okey

Adele Balkan

Francis M. Sarver

William Dorfman

William Stevens

Thriller

Crime

The Narrow Margin

RKO Radio Pictures

United States of America

The witness protection programme just got hard boiled. 

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

English

Narrow Margin 1952 Trailer