A hospital terrorist in Geneva manages to escape security, but not before contracting Bubonic Plague in the medical lab; he stows away in the baggage car of a Swiss train bound for Sweden, later mingling with the commuters (he touches a baby, food in the kitchen, he shares water with a pooch, and even approaches a cleric-collar wearing O.J. Simpson!). Doctors and military men are onto him, however, and soon the train is re-routed--towards a Polish bridge on the verge of collapse! Producer Carlo Ponti (via Lew Grade) employs a large group of famous faces for the guest-star roles, ensuring that his wife, Sophia Loren, gets plenty of Movie Star Close-Ups. Loren and Richard Harris aren't terribly credible as bickering/kissing ex-marrieds (she attempts to re-seduce him wearing a black negligée), but at least they're better than Lee Strasberg as a former prisoner-of-war and Martin Sheen as a heroin-addict passing himself off as Madame Ava Gardner's boy toy. Decadent, divine Gardner (with Bassett Hound in tow!) gets her share of close-ups too, and also the pithiest lines. The cinematography is quite impressive, and Jerry Goldsmith's score is enjoyably melodramatic, but the writing, editing, and direction are each lousy. This hit theaters on the tail-end of the all-star-disaster-epic craze...and failed to revive the dying genre. Easy to see why, most of the passengers seem as fatigued as the plot. ** from ****