Von Ryan's Express
Allied officer Colonel von Ryan rallies a band of prisoners to hijack a freight train and race across Nazi‑occupied Italy toward neutral Switzerland, while relentless German forces close in on their daring escape.
Synopsis
Von Ryan
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 36
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Dorothy SpencerShot by William H DanielsScored by Jerry Goldsmith
Box Office
1965 · Box office
✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.0× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$17.1M
Also known as
- Colonel von Ryans Expressde
- Colonel von Ryans Expreßde
- L'Express du colonel Von Ryanfr
- Il colonnello Von Ryanit
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Cast & Crew
36 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Frank Sinatra
as Col. Joseph L. Ryan
Trevor Howard
as Maj. Eric Fincham
Raffaella Carra
as Gabriella
Brad Dexter
as Sgt. Bostick
Sergio Fantoni
as Capt. Oriani
John Leyton
as Orde
Edward Mulhare
as Costanzo
Wolfgang Preiss
as Maj. Von Klemment
James Brolin
as Pvt. Ames
John Van Dreelen
as Col. Gortz
Adolfo Celi
as Battaglia
Vito Scotti
as Peppino, Italian Train Engineer
Supporting cast
16Richard Bakalyan
as Corporal Giannini
Michael Goodliffe
as Captain Stein
Michael St Clair
as Sergeant Major Dunbar
Ivan Triesault
as Von Kleist
Ian Abercrombie
as English POW
Jacques Stany
as Gortz's Aide
Robert Buzz Henry
as American POW
John Daheim
as American POW
James B Sikking
as American POW
William Berger
Arthur Brauss
Horst Ebersberg
Donald F Glut
Paul Muller
Michael Romanoff
Rudy Germane
as Controller (uncredited)
Directors
1Writers
3Producers
2Other crew
3Parents Guide
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