The Train

source: The Train

During WWII, in the final day of the German occupation of France, a German colonel and a true art lover, Col. Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), orders his troops to crate and transport all the great impressionistic paintings (from the Jeu de Paume Museum) that he can possibly get his hands on. These paintings are not only among the best in the world, they are worth millions in Reichsmarks. The crated paintings are loaded onto a train to be sent to Germany. But, the train must arrive in Germany before the Allies liberate France. While von Waldheim is obsessed with getting the train OUT of France, the French Resistance, represented by Labiche (Burt Lancaster), becomes equally determined to keep the train IN France while waiting for the Allied liberation. Very few in the Resistance understand the artistic value of the cargo, but they know that it represents 'their nation's honor' and see how valuable it must be, based on von Waldheim's determination to have it. And, while the Germans control the trains, the railroad workers form a great network of Resistance fighters. The Resistance does everything in its power to sabotage their own rail system and lead the Germans away from Germany. Small French towns are 're-labeled' to make the Germans (riding on the train) think that they are going one way when they are really going in another; trains are re- routed by conductors, switchmen, and engineers; and rail cars are separated from engines, used to block tracks and cause train wrecks. Germans, in their frustration, kill many Frenchman in retaliation. However, the battle over the train continues to the bitter end. Another Frankenheimer black-and-white masterpiece, this action movie is riveting from beginning to end. It pits the wills, skills, and ingenuity of the two principal characters in a seemly ceaseless series of cat-and-mouse ploys to control the train. The cinematography is also great. The constant imagery of trains being twisted and turned, stopped and started, heaving and letting off stem, stand in stark contrast to the art that they carry and the men that try to control them. In this movie, Frankenheimer turns trains and rails into 'living, breathing characters of steam and steel.' Scofield and Lancaster are both excellent in their opposing roles. I would rank this movie among the best movies I have ever seen!!

Real surprise, this for me, particularly bearing in mind the length (which I wasn't aware of till after watching) never mind the genre! But, forget 'long war film' and think Burt Lancaster giving his all, low key naturalistic acting and a stinking physical performance. It appears at first as if he is just going to be some suited 'yes' man for the Germans but then gets put upon to drive the contentious train. We are not quite sure at the start as to who cares what about this enormous collection of French impressionist paintings and by the end we are wondering about human life versus oil paintings. In between there is the most incredible non stop, human story driven, massive action film with the most amazing steam train action I've ever seen. Nobody comes out of this particularly well but that we are not held up for mournful moments with dying children or romantic pauses for divided lovers, just full on desperate people getting on and doing what seems best without to much pause for thought or much else. The night scenes are particularly effective with the great monstrous engines pulsing along, smoke billowing. Aircraft attacks add to the thrills but it is still Lancaster that dominates the screen. What a presence.

The movie is about a episode that happened in 1944. When France was still occupied by the Nazis, they decided to steal paintings from the Paris museums. This film is about a shipment that the French has to save before he ends to Germans, but they also don't want to be destroyed in the process. Burt Lancaster stars as a French train engineer that has to transport the shipment. At first is not a easy task, but he succeeds in the end. Meanwhile he becomes friend with a hotel owner played by French actress Jeanne Moreau (that passed away last year). And the other members of the cast are fine. Paul Scofield as a German general is great (and Scofield also starred in other great movies after this), and it was a treat seeing French comedian Michel Simon in a war movie (just like Bourvil in THE LONGEST DAY). This movie had great direction by John Frankenheimer, great performances by all the actors, and also great photography in Black and White. Although a bit dragged in some places, it was still great to watch! And as a fan of the history from 1850 until these days, I liked the movie for his accuracy and his action scenes.

Like everyone else who has posted here, I think this film is superb. Brilliant screenplay, excellent acting, exceptional directing, and so on and so forth. I think there is one little twist to the screenplay that deserves mention. Burt Lancaster has not one spoken line in the final 20 minutes of the movie. I can't recall ever seeing that done with a major character in a mainstream film. His actions ARE his words. In the final scene, we know exactly what he is thinking without him saying a word. A lovely subtle touch and the crowning moment in a truly great film.

The movie is about the Nazis taking 'degenerate' modern paintings out of Paris as the allies are approaching. The officer in charge of the spoils, Colonel Von Waldheim, is secretly in love with the art he is supposed to hate; his official motivation is based on "cash value." The French train workers, led by Labiche, have no appreciation for the art and are unaware of its cultural importance, but nevertheless fight the Germans out of patriotism, against their better instincts. Frantic, weary tension comes from the closeness of end of the war, a desperate time that drives the characters well past sane restraint. The Germans can no longer deny their impending doom. Grit comes from massive steam locomotives shot in black and white. The mortal struggle plays out on a personal level. The action is relentless. The director, John Frankenheimer, relies on the intelligence and empathy of the audience to convey his story. Much of the movie is concerned with the mechanicals of how a railroad works. It shows the dignity and solidarity of the workers, and their huge effort. The theme is the waste, the cost of war -- what is worth fighting for, what you actually do fight for even though it does not seem to be worth it, and the capricious outcome. The tally comes at the final scene. "The Train" is a perfect action-adventure war drama.

A standout WWII drama, loosely based on a true story. In 1944, as the Allies spread across France from the Normandy landings, the Nazis looted Paris art museums and loaded the works onto a train, with the intention of carrying them back to the Fatherland and selling or bartering them for scarce war materials. A fairly hare-brained scheme, to be sure, and in reality the train never made it further than a siding just east of the city, but that shouldn't hinder one's enjoyment of what turns out to be a classic action film. The centerpiece of the movie is a clash of wills between Von Waldheim, a cultured but iron-backed Nazi colonel (well-played by Paul Scofield) charged with getting the stolen artworks to Germany, and a taciturn railway troubleshooter named Labiche (Burt Lancaster). Von Waldheim first enlists Labiche as 'insurance' against any monkey business during the train's journey. Labiche, though, happens to have Resistance connections and, with serious reservations, is drawn into a desperate, improvised plot to stop the train, preferably without damaging the precious artifacts inside. Although easily enjoyed as a straight action flick, what gives the film weight is the supporting story, in which Labiche at first argues against wasting precious lives on a few crates of paintings he's never seen, then gradually comes round as he begins to understand that the Nazis are effectively carrying off a large piece of the heart of France. Beautiful deep-focus black and white photography, and solid supporting performances by a mostly French cast (of which Jeanne Moreau may be the best-known), convincingly evoke the bleak misery of the Occupation. John Frankenheimer's economical direction manages to present highly-charged action scenes without glossing over the human cost, as Von Waldheim exacts savage reprisals against escalating efforts to hinder the train's passage. Lancaster, who performed his own stunts, is excellent, furiously athletic as he slides down ladders, leaps onto moving locomotives, and charges over ridges and fields in pursuit of the train. At the same time, he manages to effectively bring a subtle authenticity to his portrayal of the weary, fatalistic railwayman. Finally, the action set-pieces are nothing short of stunning, and include the train's mad dash through an Allied carpet-bombing attack, a strafing raid on a speeding locomotive, and several wrecks and derailments, all staged full-scale with period equipment donated by the French national railway. Well worth obtaining on DVD, the film may be hard to find on broadcast television these days.

...and now probably unbeatable, with most of the complete infrastructure of steam times gone. Although the film re-draws the map of France, all the 'sets' are real - and the action, real crashes with real trains, just breathtaking. Meanwhile, the film shows the insanity of WWII on the Western front in all its ugliness: railroaders having to fear Allied planes attacking them as supply lines, German military executing them for sabotage, and the Resistance blowing up tracks under them at the same time; Nazis taking hostages and executing them for Resistance attacks, and the human cost of political decisions like saving works of art or a French battalion freeing Paris themselves. (Tough, what went on in Western Europe was nothing compared to what went on in occupied Poland or Ukraine.) And then there is the central moral dilemma of the film: is art, because of its uniqueness and because it is considered national treasure, more valuable than a few human lives? The film is rather cruelly inconclusive. SPOILER ALERT The fast dying lesser French heroes in the film seem to think so. But so does think the villain of the film, the Nazi captain with a sense for art who wants to take all the paintings to Germany. The distressed leading character (played by Burt Lancaster) has the opposed view - but after his comrades are subsequently killed, seems to think he has to continue so that all these people wouldn't have died for nothing. In the final scene, when the train is finally stopped, and the left-alone Nazi captain talked his final words in expectation of being shot down, with the shot hostages scattered on the ground behind Burt Lancaster's character, who then shoots - that is an act of desperation and defeat (eerily reminiscent of the ending of a much later film, 'Se7en'). The brutal moral ambiguity of this movie may be one reason that the film, tough having enough patina to have regular night-time TV re-runs, is not that popular.

German Army Colonel Paul Scofield has come up with an idea that no doubt tickled the fancy of Herman Goering, Nazi Germany's most noted collector of art. As Von Rundstedt's army is retreating and Paris is about to be liberated, Scofield decides to liberate a whole collection of the finest of French painters. The works of Matisse, Gauguin, Renoir, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec are taken from museums and loaded on a train bound for Germany. They will possibly be used as a trading tool for the Germans of whom many believe the war is lost. The manager of the train marshaling yard in Paris is Burt Lancaster and he's a Resistance fighter. Suzanne Flon a museum curator tells the Resistance about the train and can they stop it. It's containing a lot of the heritage of France. The Resistance takes on the job. The Train rapidly becomes a personal test of wills between Lancaster and Scofield. And they're pretty evenly matched as adversaries. Scofield represents the occupying army, Lancaster the people of France. The Train was based on a true incident in which the Nazis did try to steal a lot of valuable art work and the Resistance did delay them until the Allied Armed Forces got to Paris and beyond. You have to remember this was an American production, in fact one that Burt Lancaster's own production company made with John Frankenheimer directing. Had it been a French production, I could easily have seen Jean Gabin in Lancaster's role. Most of the rest of the cast was made up of German and French players. Jeanne Moreau has a nice part of an innkeeper who is not involved at all in the Resistance, but offers some timely aid to Lancaster when he needs first an alibi and a hideout in separate incidents. A favorite of mine is Michel Simon as the old train engineer who does his own little bit of resisting and pays with his own life for it. Lancaster is in the lead and it's his film, but for my money Paul Scofield is best in The Train. An idea with him becomes a positive obsession that he can't let go of even when it's blatantly apparent to all others things are kaput. Scofield is really one frightening human being. He actually got the idea because he really is an art connoisseur and knows what their value is both commercially and to the culture of France. As for Lancaster, he's not an educated man, he's a working stiff who worked his way up in the railroad trade to become a manager. He knows the value also of what he's being asked to save, but he seriously questions whether the human sacrifice is necessary. The Train has a lot of action, but even more it has suspense. You're wondering right up to the end whether the Germans will pull it off. The Train was shot on location in and around Paris and the scenes at the marshaling yards are quite authentic and photographed well. The Train is a good World War II movie and I even think the French would like this one also although they probably would and did complain that one of there own cinema stars didn't do this.

A gripping high-contrast black and white film from 1965 The Train, directed by John Frankenheimer pays off in every way. Shot on location in France, there is not a mundane moment in the 133-minute movie. The Train has as its central conflict the combating wills of a German Officer and middle class worker and these two characters represent the battle between France and Germany during World War Two. Frankenheimer's direction and coverage of the action is stunning with deep focus night shots, and airplane shots, and multi-camera action, particularly the bombing of a train station with many locomotives going up in smoke. This particular scene is one of the highlights that the director talks about on the commentary track on the DVD. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay the story in the Train is intelligently simple, focusing on characterization as the basis of the conflict. All of the action follows from the desire of the main players in the story, and although there is a good guy and a bad guy, there are no pure motives. Every character justifies what he does convincingly. Col. Waldheim wants to take the paintings back to Germany so that the American bombs do not destroy them, whereas Labiche is interested in stopping the train of paintings mainly as a kick in the groin to German political intentions. It is the rationale of each character that determines where our sympathies lie. We are shown the Germans through Waldheim as lovers of culture but cruel and insensitive to human emotions. We see the French through Labiche as simple, honest hard-working people and their art as an extension of their humanity. Walter Bernstein, screenwriter for The Train as well as Yanks, understood how this character-driven action psychologically affects and involves the viewer. By having Waldheim voice his emotions in taking the art, and having Labiche voice his determination, the script affects us viscerally by our identification with each character at different levels. The great high contrast black and white print really allows the drama to come through in the actioner. In more than one instance the stolen art is spoken of as the great treasures of France. Ironically the art in the movie shown in black and white in the first scene is never shown again only spoken of and this makes it a living thing in the characters minds and our own as well. It is the black and white print used in many night scenes showing simple action that creates such a compelling tale of Labiche and his ability to out-wit the General Waldheim, and divert the paintings of Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, and other artists from being commandeered by the Germans. Burt Lancaster shows his stuff doing many of his own stunts. The guy was 50 years old when he made this movie! We see the actor fall from trains, slide down ladders, lift large train mechanisms from an Iron-working smelting shop, and climb up and down mountains, actions even the heartiest Baby Boomer will marvel at. Lancaster's acting is perfectly pitched for the movie. At one point I wondered why there wasn't a French actor in the role, considering that Labiche is a French man but the American accent doesn't really distract. Scofield as the German General in charge of the train is English and his accent doesn't distract either. In both cases the attitude of the actor is what makes the role successful and each is perfectly cast. The support cast is excellent and work from a well-written script. Jeanne Moreau as Christine the hotel owner exhibits a combination of brittle emotions ranging from anger to suspicion to forgiveness to affection. Michel Simon as Papa Boule who cripples the art train out of spite for the Germans has one moment when he speaks about a former girlfriend that opens a light on the sensitivity of this otherwise irascible old man.