FILM'S STARS ON TRACK FOR RECORD PREMIERE; DA VINCI CODE WEEK...

STARS of The Da Vinci Code movie began their global promotional blitz yesterday - on the Eurostar train.

Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and director Ron Howard were among the celebrities who headed off from Waterloo Station for Cannes.

The movie of Dan Brown's controversial best-seller receives its world premiere at the French town's Film Festival tonight.

Co-stars Sir Ian McKellen, Paul Bettany, Jean Reno and Alfred Molina were also in London to kick-start the film's Friday release.

The actors are hoping to enter the record books by making the longest international non-stop rail journey to reach Cannes.

Eurostar had laid on the train -named The Da Vinci Code - to whisk the cast on the 883-mile trip from London to France.

Oscar-winner Hanks - Harvard academic Robert Langdon in the movie - won his own entry in the record books last week. He was named as the actor with the most consecutive $100million-grossing movies, after scoring seven box office hits in a row.

ACADEMICS from across Britain gather at Glasgow University for a one-day conference on Saturday to tackle the "dangerous myths" spread by The Da Vinci Code.

Religious Education department head Dr Bob Davis said: "People are treating this book as a serious account of biblical and European history, when it is anything but."

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FOR THE RECORD: From left, Ron Howard, Audrey Tautou and Tom Hanks get ready to board the train