The opening sequence, on a train, is mesmerizing--a four-and-a-half minute masterpiece that weaves a spell right from the start, lacerating you with a terrible, unexpected shock that leads into John Dankworth's strange, haunting theme, a vaguely sinister, slow rumba theme played at what Ray Charles used to call "the death tempo" and with the principal melody initially rendered on the harpsichord. (Though the genre and rhythm are quite different, the part played by the musical theme in this film is vaguely reminiscent of the zither theme in Orson Welles's "Third Man.") The film never quite delivers on the promise of its stunning beginning, and the way the heroine keeps coming back for more punishment (a little love, a lot of betrayal) from Maximilian Schell's character, suave but an evident stinker, strains credulity. But Samantha Eggar's many-shaded performance, ranging from supremely confident and skilled physician to brutalized concentration-camp survivor--and quite a bit in between--is riveting.