The Train
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Of all the actors I love in movies made in post-World War II America, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan and Burt Lancaster are three of my absolute favorites. Their on-screen charisma and intensity, their willingness to portray complex heroes as well as antagonists with frightening hearts of darkness, always draws me to them. No matter what the film or the genre, I find those three actors compelling.
Burt Lancaster made many great movies that I could easily review here: The Sweet Smell of Success, Elmer Gantry, Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days in May, The Swimmer, to name a few. But there’s an often-overlooked gem from his filmography that deserves attention and showcases Burt’s command of the action movie genre. It’s The Train.
The plan was for the looted cargo to be sold on the black market to help fund the faltering German war machine.
Made in 1964 and directed by John Frankenheimer, the film is a terrific thriller set in France during the last days of World War II. It’s based on real-life events surrounding an actual train that was loaded with hundreds of crates, each one filled with art masterpieces, stolen by the Nazis, looted from museums and private collections, and bound for Germany. The plan was for the cargo to be sold on the black market to help fund the faltering German war machine. Fortunately, word of the impending theft reached members of the French Resistance, and they devised a complicated plan to stop the train, a delicate operation since they did not want to damage the priceless cargo of Picassos, Cezannes, Van Goghs, and many others.
The Train uses these facts to craft an exhilarating cat-and-mouse game between two mutual antagonists. The brilliant British actor Paul Scofield plays Colonel Von Waldheim, a cultured Nazi officer obsessed with the paintings. He wants them in Germany at all costs, so much so that he blindly ignores orders from his superiors because he’s running out of time. The allies are closing in fast. Matching wits against him is Paul Labiche, a railway man and a member of the French Resistance, played by Lancaster. While he makes no attempt at a French accent, Lancaster is believable. He prepared for the role by learning how to engineer the train, and he performed all of his own physically demanding stunts. As always, he commands your attention whenever he is on screen.
How Labiche battles Von Waldheim’s desperate effort to steal the artwork is clever and beautifully directed. Their struggle of wills is at the dramatic heart of the movie. And Frankenheimer’s insistence on shooting the film in a bleak black and white, on railyard locations in France, all while using actual trains, even for the collisions and explosions that occur, gives The Train a documentary-like, real-life believability.
Finally, what makes the movie a classic for me is its balance of meticulous physical action and a provocative theme. Throughout the film, characters wage a debate: is it worth it to sacrifice human lives to save art? Is protecting the cultural heritage of a nation worth dying for? It is a debate that lives on today in war-torn countries around the world.
I give The Train four out of four stars. The high stakes chess match of Labiche versus Von Waldheim, of Burt Lancaster versus Paul Scofield, is a fabulous one to savor.
