Mark Turner I've been a fan of director John Frankenheimer for some time. The director of films like SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, THE FIXER, BLACK Sunday and RONIN always delivered plenty of action balanced with enough story to make the films hold your interest from start to finish. I'd recalled hearing of THE TRAIN years ago, remembered seeing it advertised when it was to be on television but never saw it until now.In 1944 the Germans were sensing the end was near. During the war they had ransacked the museums of the countries they invaded and a large collection of art has been stockpiled. In an effort to retain the art and insure it isn't destroyed in bombings Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) is determined to ship the treasures to Germany at any costs.Resistance leaders in France know that the allied forces arrival is imminent and want to make sure that the art never leaves their country. With that arrival around the corner all they need to do is make sure the train never leaves the country. They set into motion a plan to make sure that this happens.Resistance leader and an inspector for the SNCF (French National Railway Corporation) Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster) argues that it's not worth losing the lives of his men to save a load of paintings. When an elderly engineer is executed for trying to thwart the train on his own Labiche agrees to help and a plan is set in motion to stop the train.The movie offers more story than action here which many were expecting given the artwork found in posters for the film as well as the trailer. Even with that being the case it makes for an interesting movie, something different than most war films at that time or since. The clash of wills between the two men is classic. What is different is their motivations. Von Waldheim is the bad buy and yet cares more about the artwork than the good guy Labiche. That's something different to mull over.Lancaster and Frankenheimer worked together on a number of films and their pairing here works well for both of them. Lancaster is provided a vehicle that gives him the chance to flex some acting muscle as well as add enough action to satisfy his fans. Frankenheimer adds to the list of films he made that showed he was a capable director no matter what he was given.Twilight Time released this film before but it quickly sold out. Requests were enough that they are releasing it once more in this encore edition but as is always the case it is limited to just 3,000 copies so those interested should jump before it's gone once more. Extras include an isolated score track, an audio commentary with film historians Julie Kirgo, Paul Seydor and Nick Redman, an audio commentary with director Frankenheimer and the original theatrical trailer.

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** One of if not the best action adventure films by the great Burt Lancaster who plays a both a member of the French Resitance as well as train operator Paul Labiche who gets involved in preventing the Germans from stealing the glory of France's great artworks. Even though to him who doesn't for a minute appreciate the three car loads of fine arts in Labiche feeling their nothing but a bunch mindless and in-comprehensive pieces of modern junk not worth dying for. It's the fanatical Nazi and refined art lover German Colonel Von Waldheim, Paul Scofield, who's job it is to get the valuable paintings into Germany before the allies get them first who jeopardizes everything, even his county's last slim chance of winning the war, to get them there safely and undamaged. This results in a battle of wills between both the backward and unsophisticated, in appreciating the finer things in life, Labiche & cultured and art loving Col. Von Waldheim that put the war in Western Europe in the summer of 1944 on the back burner.With Labiche who had batter things to do, in keeping the trains running on time, reluctantly going along with the plan to save France's greatest artworks he and his fellow French Resistance members change street town and train signs that are to lead the train into Germany in order to divert it back into France until the allies who are bogged down by the fanatical and effective German defenses get to it. It soon becomes evident to Labiche that he'll have to do the job all by himself which in the end cost the lives his entire, with the exception of himself, 18 man French Resistance crew! Burt Lancaster as French resistance fighter Labiche had to hobble on one leg throughout the second half on the film not in him acting but because he was injured during filming and, in making like that he was shot while ruining across a bridge by the German Luftwaffe, having his injury incorporated into the movie!****SPOILERS**** Col. Von Waldheim's obsession with getting the artworks back into Germany turned out to be his own undoing as well as that of the German military. By him, against orders from his superiors, tying up and preventing German combat units from getting to the front-lines to confront the allies and leaving them, in trying to get the French artwork back into the Reich, flat-footed and subjected to deadly allied air attacks! With a wounded but very effective Labiche frustrating Col. Von Waldheim at every turn and seeing that he lost his chance of stealing all that wonderful artwork for his country which finally by then, with the outcome of the war taking 1st place, like Labiche he couldn't care less about. In a last an insane desperate act of revenge that Col. Von Waldheim orders his men to gun down some two dozen French civilian hostages that has the limping down the mountain Labiche finally, if he didn't by then, lose it. And with that lose his chance of turning the glory of France's artworks back to where they belong in the French museums. By leaving them there strewn -all over 100 million dollars worth- on the tracks together with the bullet ridden and highly decorated body of Col. Von Waldheim for anyone to rob or pillage!

tieman64 John Frankenheimer's "The Train" stars Burt Lancaster as Paul Labiche, a French Resistance member. It is the 1511th day of the German occupation, and Paul is attempting to prevent Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) from transporting French art collections out of France and into Germany.Throughout the 1960s, Franhenheimer made a series of films which flaunted their audacious cutting and kinetic camera work. "The Train" is no different. Virtually every shot is special, the film packed with logistically complex sequences, fine location photography and beautiful, now-extinct steam engines, ink-black monsters which lend the film an air of techno-romance."Beauty belongs to the man who can appreciate it!" Waldheim yells, his words speaking to the misguided exceptionalism of whole nations. Labiche shoots him and walks away. This simple moment of revenge is complicated throughout the picture. No painting is worth a life, Labiche tells us, yet strewn around him are the consequences of his very plan to thwart Waldheim; hundreds dead, all for art which Labiche personally has no interest in. Beauty belongs to the man who appreciates, Labiche perhaps wonders as the film fades to black, so long as he's French?8/10 - One of Frankenheimer's finest. See "Decision Before Dawn" and "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold".

AaronCapenBanner John Frankenheimer does a first-rate job directing this riveting and atmospheric WWII film set in August 1944, as the approaching Allies are forcing a German retreat from France, but a German commander(Paul Scofield) arranges for the French art treasures he values to smuggled out of the country in secret by train. Burt Lancaster plays station master Labiche, who is in charge of making the trip run smoothly, but is also a member of the resistance, so must delay the train as much as possible, then when no more delays will be tolerated, actively tries to sabotage the train, no matter the cost, though he is also ordered to not damage any of the valuable paintings, which are France's heritage.Burt Lancaster is excellent here, both in his performance and how he handles the physical action, which is most impressive, as is the on location filming, giving this picture a welcome look of authenticity, and building to an action-packed finale.