SimonJack Even so-called "B" movies can be good - if they have a good plot, screenplay, sets and settings, and cast. Unfortunately, "The Dawn Express" is lacking in all of these. As much as one might want to have an interesting espionage thriller, this film just screams "amateur." The script is terrible, the plot and acting resemble the melodrama of silent films. Most propaganda films are much better than this. The plot idea is a good one, but the story just didn't get a very good screenplay. Either that or the direction was terrible. More than likely, it was a combination of the two. Even the most die-hard war movie collectors will want to forget this poor film.

mark.waltz Propopganda drama of Nazi's after two scientists involved in the creation of an explosive. Stereotypical Nazi villains burbling typically lame trite dialog, a sexy femme fatal out to seduce one of the two to get her hands on it, and quite suddenly, an action packed finale that ends with a bang while the whole film itself seems to be buried in a whimper. Michael Whelan and William Bakewell are two pals who become involved in the Nazi's quest with Bakewell the sap who falls prey to the obviously sinister Constance Worth's flirtations. Whelan is pulled in but his intentions are obviously to foil their evil plan, while Bakewell goes along with the plot simply to protect his sister (Anne Nagel) who is engaged to Whelan and their father. Excruciatingly slow pacing makes this extremely difficult to get through but that all of a sudden changes its course as the film begins to wrap up after just over an hour. Even that first 90 percent of the movie is extremely hard to get through, but there's a sense of satisfaction with a shockingly violent ending. The presence of a supposedly blind man with a knife hidden inside his cane only adds to the stereotype of brutally evil Nazi villains, and the opening scene of another professor being brutally targeted then murdered doesn't aid in any subtlety that the film might have tried for better results otherwise.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** One of the very first movies out of Hollywood after the entrenches of the US into WWII the film "Dawn Express" concentrates on the Nazis effort to steal, by hook crook and pay offs, the secret formula 3-B-11 no not the ingredients of a new kind of soft drink from Coca Cola but something that has to do with doubling the mileage of your gas tank when it's dropped in the gasoline. This secret is so important to the Nazi war machine that Germany sent it's top secret agent, who has trouble hiding his very prominent German accent, to the US Captain Gemmer, Harr Hans Heinrich Von Twardowski, who never makes mistakes to get his hands on it.It's the two US chemists Robert Norton & Tom Fielding, Michael Whalen & William Bkewell, whom Capt. Gemmer wants kidnapped and then paid off, with $100,000.00 in US currency, to give him formula 3-B-11 or else he'll not only off them but their family members as well! It's when Norton finally gives in to spill the beans or the formula to the Nazis that his good friend Tom Fielding turns traitor to his country and not only volunteers to give them the magic formula for gasoline enhancement but mix it for them as well!***SPOILERS*** As we'll soon see Tom Fielding is no traitor to his country but a full fledged hero instead. Putting his life on the life Fielding is brought on a Nazi airplane to fly back to Germany with top Nazi chemist Karl Schmidt, George Pembroke, to check if him mixing formula 3-B-11 is on the up and up. You begin to wounder why Schmidt couldn't do it himself? It was an act of desperation by Fielding but he in the end put and end to the Nazis attempt to get their hands on secret formula 3-B-11 by putting an end to them as well as himself!P.S What Tom Fielding did was copied in real life by the likes of Japanese kamikaze pilots as well as Al-Qeada suicide bombers who's actions in some cases were just as successful as his were!

jcholguin It is during World War II and nazi spies will stop at nothing to get a secret formula of increasing the power of gasoline. Two scientists Norton and Fielding have the information. Will Norton accept the offer of 100,000 dollars or will Fielding accept the offer of the lives of his mother and sister? What about the protection of the american intelligence team assigned to protect them? One of the agents should have watched an episode of "Get Smart" because when he gets killed he could have said "fell for the old knife hidden in the blind man's cane trick." A rather interesting film and worth the watch.