Review of The Train (1964) by Tony H — 26 Jan 2013

John Frankenheimer's 1964 film has always been overlooked for some strange reason, while other sub-par WWII movies are hailed as classics. In fairness it probably is over-rated by some, but that doesn't take away the overall general quality of the film itself. There are strong performances throughout, including a quietly restraint Burt Lancaster as rail master Labiche and a superb Paul Schofield as Colonel von Waldheim. Another nod should go to Wolfgang Preiss as a German major, concerned not with using trains to ship priceless art cargo, but with getting troops to the rapidly failing front.

The story is simple enough, the afore-mentioned priceless art is to be shipped out of France to Germany. Colonel Von Waldheim's obsession with the impressionist pieces (deemed degenerate by the National Socialists) leads him to acquire a train to move the art under the cover-story of their monitary value to the Reich. The resistance are charged to stop the train, without damaging the works of course. This leads to a battle of will between Labiche and Von Waldheim.

Once the film is done with pretensions of art-over-life and the paintings being "part of France" hokum, it settles down into a rather exciting, if somewhat silly, story. But it's made convincing by the driving narrative, suspenseful set pieces (the locomotive being attacked by a Spitfire) and good characters, although it is let down slightly by the usual evil German stereotype which doesn't do the film any favours.

All in all, the suspense is kept throughout and the action scenes are great although the running time is a little too long and could have been trimmed by about 15 mins or so.