Death Steps in the Dark 1977

On an express train from Istanbul to Greece, Luciano Morelli, [Leonard Mann], a seasoned Italian reporter, travels with his girlfriend Ingrid Stelmossen, [Vera Krouska], a rising Swedish model, along with a cross-section of fellow passengers—a Lebanese man, a Greek socialite, a Turkish priest, and a nervous young French woman. The car becomes a small, tense world as they share cramped space and wary glances, each person carrying their own secrets.

In the tunnel’s darkness a scream slices through the carriage. When the train emerges back into light, the young French woman lies dead, a letter opener pinned deep in her heart. The murder weapon ties the crime to Luciano, and the Inspector, [Robert Webber], interrogates every passenger as passports are confiscated and no one is allowed to leave. Amid the growing fear, a glamorous but shrewd singer and entrepreneur, Ulla, [Susy Jennings], learns from her lover Raul, [Nikos Verlekis], that one of the killer’s gloves has surfaced and an extortion plot may be unfolding. The killer demands a ransom in drachmas for the glove’s return, but Ulla pushes for a higher sum to maximize leverage, while Raul tries to keep the price low to avoid provoking the killer.

At the organized rendezvous, the killer leaves the money as bait for Raul, then strikes—cracking his skull with a wooden post and slashing his throat. Luciano, ever the fixer, reconnects with an acquaintance in organized crime, who translates a local paper to confirm that Luciano is the prime suspect and not a mere bystander. In disguise, Luciano is offered a hiding place—a fishing cabin beside the tracks, a grim lull in which to wait out the storm. He attempts to reach Ingrid for supplies and a discreet rendezvous, but the Inspector answers the calls, foiling the plan and leaving Luciano with dwindling options and mounting frustration.

Meanwhile, the other passengers’ fates unfold in parallel dramas. The Lebanese traveler watches the investigation from a distance, the Turkish priest is revealed to be a ploy to meet a mistress in Greece, and the Greek socialite grows tired of her marriage and seeks a divorce. Ulla becomes entangled with Teodorus Teodopolous, sponsoring a bust of her own head as a public symbol of her vanity. A new, higher ransom note arrives, intensifying the stakes. When she performs at a nightclub, Luciano confronts her, and she agrees to a meeting the following day. That night, the killer breaks into the apartment Ulla shares with a girlfriend, drowns her companion, and then slashes Ulla in the bathroom, squeezing the life from both.

The chase tightens as the Inspector corners Luciano, but a drug dealer is arrested to delay the inevitable. Desperate, Luciano persuades a contact to help him stage a heist: break into Teodorus’ home to recover Ulla’s head bust that could unlock a fortune. A crime-boss’s daughter accompanies them, attempting her first safe cracking, which adds risk and a touch of chaos to the scheme. The boss’s daughter and Ingrid arrive at the scene, but the daughter’s inexperience nearly scuttles the plan. The break-in succeeds only because Ingrid opens the safe by accident; Teodorus is killed by the killer as they flee, but the bust is recovered and stashed before responders arrive.

All three surviving suspects are invited to a fashion show, where Ingrid stands at the center of the spectacle. As the show unfolds, each guest is offered a cigarette; the Lebanese man and the Turkish priest refuse, while the socialite Lights up and notices something uncanny—the presence of “Ulla” on the cigarette, signaling a trap. Panic erupts as the socialite flees, and she ends up on a rooftop where she loses her balance and plummets to the gravel below. The young safe cracker later reveals she wore a mask made from Ulla’s bust to lure the killer into a trap, turning the night’s events on their head.

The Inspector reveals what he has long suspected: Luciano was not guilty, and his improvised plan may have saved lives. The killer is Ida Tuclidis, a socialite who craved more excitement than her dull marriage allowed and who moved in circles with drug traffickers. Teodorus and the socialite’s network, and even the Lebanese narcotics officer tracking Tuclidis, provide the web of connections that led to the bloodshed. The plan to erase witnesses culminates in a chilling display of greed and danger, and the ending leaves the final tally unclear—whether all threats were truly silenced or if danger simply faded into the shadows of the post-crime hush.