The Train

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The Train
IMDB Page (external link)
Writer:	Rose Valland (book), Franklin Coen, Frank Davis, Walter Bernstein (uncredited), Albert Husson (french version, uncredited)
Starring:	Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau, Suzanne Flon
Director:	John Frankenheimer
Music by:	Maurice Jarre
Distributor:	?
Release Date:	1964 (USA)
Runtime:	133 min.
Language:	English

The Train is a 1964 war movie written by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis, directed by John Frankenheimer and based on a book by Rose Valland. It starred Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield. It is set at the end of World War II and follows a group of the French Resistance's attempts to stop a Nazi officer from taking many great works of art from France back to Germany.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the end of WWII, when the Germans were pulling out of France, the French Resistance hear that a Nazi officer is taking a trainload of modern paintings from the Jeu de Paume Museum with him. While the Germans do not officially like modern art, which they call degenerate art, they know the monetary value of the paintings. Burt Lancaster, playing railway inspector Labiche and part of the Resistance, and his comrades at first are reluctant to risk human lives simply to save paintings. But, convinced that the heritage of France and a symbol of civilisation is being dragged back to the lair of the evil and uncivilised, the men decide to act. There is a tiny sliver of romance and sex as Lancaster's Labiche crossed idealogical swords with Jeanne Moreau's hotel owner, but the focus is on the determination and courage of the practical men of the French railroad. Lancaster's physicality is quietly underlined by simple scenes, such as where he is hand-casting engine parts, pointing up a world of mechanics and engineering we have lost.

At first the engineer on the train uses french franc coins to place in the engine to mess it up, though he is caught and shot. In a series of clever and often elaborate ruses, the Resistance men of the French railway convince the Germans that the train has crossed into Germany, when in fact it has been shunted throughout France. The train is actually heading south and around in a circle back to where it started from. It crashes there into another derailed train, while a third train coming up behind crashes into it. Following this, the French resistance are told that the British will bomb trains in the area except for the art train, which they are to paint the roofs of the first carriages white. They are discovered doing this, and a shootout commences with the German troops. When the Germans realise that the British do not bomb the train, they plan to use the train to escape. Labiche then sets explosives on the line in front of the train but when he sees the Germans have tied up resistance fighters to the front, he sets the explosives off before the train arrives, which only derails it slightly. The Germans then decide to guard the railway tracks for the next few miles ahead, while they fix the track. Labiche, who has been wounded in the previous gunfight sets off on an agonising trip over a hill to further ahead along the track, where he breaks into a shed on the side of the track and uses its tools to unscrew some of the nuts on the line. When the train arrives, the Germans do not stop in time, and the train is derailed even though they were only going at 'not more than 10 miles per hour.' This happens next to a road where vehicles of German men are retreating back to Germany, and after the Nazi officer unsuccessfully tries arguing with the men there to put the paintings on board the trucks, he gives up and orders his men on the trucks. He then stays alone to face Labiche.

In the end, Paul Scofield's German officer, Franz von Waldheim, and Labiche face each other, the German knowing he has lost, but taunts Labiche with the fact that so many French men have died and whether their sacrifice is worth it in Labiche's eyes. Labiche's answer is to kill him, but we, the audience, are left to ponder the names of the painters with the final shots interplacing stills of the boxes of paintings with pictures of the dead bodies. Are Matisee, Picasso, Braque etc. worth men's lives? What is it that we defend when we defend civilisation? Why is Art a trophy for conquering armies, and where does Art fit in the self-definition of a nation? The film's stark black and white photography both give the story an historical feel and give it dramatic starkness.

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Artists

At the start of the film, while the credits are running, the boxes of paintings are being loaded. The names of the following artists are spray painted on them, in this order: