Watch The Train For Free

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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.

In August 1944, with Allied forces closing in on Paris, the German forces seize a number of art masterpieces from the Musee du Jeu de Paume and attempt to move them by train to Germany. The officer in charge of the operation, Colonel Franz von Waldheim, orders Paul Labiche, a French railway official, to arrange the shipment. Unknown to the Germans, Labiche is also a member of the Resistance, and Mademoiselle Villard, the curator of the Museum, asks him and his cell to delay the train until Paris has been liberated. At first Labiche is unwilling to help her as this will mean putting human lives at risk for the sake of what he considers "mere paintings", but later changes his mind after Papa Boule, an elderly engine driver, is executed for attempting his own private act of sabotage. (This story is, very loosely, based upon true events).It would appear that the film's original director, Arthur Penn, was sacked and replaced by John Frankenheimer at the behest of by its star Burt Lancaster, who wanted to turn it into more of an action movie, which he felt would do better at the box-office. (Lancaster and Frankenheimer had earlier worked together on "The Birdman of Alcatraz" and "Seven Days in May). As a result, the script was also rewritten. I would not generally approve of this sort of ego-driven string-pulling by movie stars, especially when a director as gifted as Penn is one of its victims, but have to admit that in this particular case it had some interesting consequences. Lancaster certainly got his action sequences, and some of them are spectacular. A train crash was staged using real trains, and an Allied air raid on a rail yard was filmed by blowing up a real rail yard. (The French railway authorities had long wanted to demolish it but had lacked the funds to do so before the film company did the job for them).In the film as originally conceived, Labiche was to have been an art lover, risking his life to save his country's artistic heritage. In the film as actually made he is not particularly interested in art and has never visited the museum to see the pictures which he is now trying to save. He is motivated by, at most, a patriotic view that the Germans should not be allowed to steal anything belonging to the French state. It is Waldheim who is the art lover. This does not mean that he is a "good German". In many ways, especially his cruelty and disregard for human life, he is a typical Nazi. In one respect, however, he is very untypical of the Nazis indeed. The looted art works are all by Impressionist or Post-Impressionist artists like Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh and Cezanne, whom the Nazis despised as degenerate. Waldheim does not despise these artists at all- he loves them with a passion. Although he tries to justify his operation to his superiors in terms of the financial value of the paintings, suggesting that the Germans might use them as a bargaining-chip in peace negotiations, it is clear that he is driven more by his private obsession than by any political or military considerations. His attitude becomes clear in his final arrogant speech to Labiche: "A painting means as much to you as a string of pearls to an ape..... The paintings are mine. They always will be. Beauty belongs to the man who can appreciate it".It seems odd that a film about art should have been made in black-and-white (something fast falling into disuse in the mid-sixties), but I think that Frankenheimer's choice was the right one. We only see the pictures themselves for short periods, and the gritty monochrome photography seems appropriate to the railway stations, marshalling yards, industrial premises and working-class neighbourhoods which form the backdrop to much of the film. One could almost describe it as a kitchen-sink action movie.We cannot know how Penn's projected film might have turned out, but Frankenheimer's is certainly a very good one. At its heart are two excellent performances from Lancaster as Labiche and Paul Scofield as Waldheim. The increase in the number of action sequences does not detract from the film's central moral question; can the preservation of a work of art, however, valuable, justify the loss of a single human life? (This is a question which has once again taken on relevance with the recent deliberate destruction by ISIS and other militant Islamic groups of artworks deemed offensive or un-Islamic). The film also raises a second question: can any moral value be ascribed to the appreciation of great art when a knowledgeable connoisseur like Waldheim can also be an amoral brute? These two questions are probably unanswerable- certainly no definitive answer could ever be given- but that does not mean we should not ask them. "The Train" is a rare example of a wartime adventure which combines action not just with kitchen-sink realism but also with philosophical depth. 8/10 An odd coincidence. I doubt if the use of the name "Waldheim" for the film's villain seemed in any way remarkable in 1964. After, however, subsequent revelations about the wartime career of Kurt Waldheim, the former UN Secretary-General and Austrian President, the scriptwriter seems to have been strangely prescient in choosing that particular surname.

John Frankenheimer's thrilling war drama 'The Train' concerns an elaborate railroad resistance plot to keep a train full of French art treasures from being shipped to Germany, in the waning days of the war.As Allied forces are about to liberate France on August 2, 1944 and are bearing down on Paris, a fanatical aesthete, Col. Waldheim (splendidly played by Paul Scofield) convinces his recalcitrant superiors to allocate a much-needed train to highball art treasures of the Jeu de Paume Museumt by arguing that they're worth a billion German marks. Soon the museum is emptied of France's national art heritage, as priceless and irreplaceable art works are cherry picked by Waldheim and placed in crates in the boxcars of a train heading for Germany. The curator of the museum informs the Resistance of the train shipment and tries to persuade Labiche (Burt Lancaster), the earthy inspector of French railways and secretly a member of the Resistance, to intercept the invaluable treasured cargo and not destroy it. He is initially reluctant to sacrifice men for paintings but finally gives in when an old engineer, almost his foster father, is killed by the Germans for trying to hold up the art train. Now committed to do anything to stop the art treasures from leaving France, he puts an elaborate plot into action which involves driving the train around in circles by having the stations en-route change their names and orchestrating a collision of two steam locomotives.Even at 133 minutes, there's scarcely a second of The Train that doesn't move it forward on the tracks. Though The Train is a marvel of old-fashioned action craft, from invisible dolly shots of breathtaking sophistication to the careful staging of massive railway catastrophes, it's not a thoughtless adventure by any means. In Frankenheimer's hands, the whole paraphernalia of trains, tracks and shunting yards acquires an almost hypnotic fascination as the screen becomes a giant chessboard on which huge metallic pawns are maneuvered, probing for some fatal weakness but seemingly engaged in some deadly primeval struggle. The action scenes hold up really well nearly five decades on largely because Frankenheimer crashes real steam locomotives on several occasions — including a three-way pileup that puts any modern CGI conflagration to shame. All the film's movement of railway equipment, chases and train collisions provide nail-biting suspense and are accomplished with great skill.It all adds up to a thrilling, ingenious World War II drama that still ranks as one of the best train movies of all time.

That's the most terrific war film ever, especially about trains. I discovered it when I was a kid, and still am amazed by this pure gem. What a performance from the outstanding Paul Scofield as the evil but so ambivalent German officer; ambivalent because how not to be fascinated by this character so ruthless but in the same time so in love with art and paintings? How? Now the two important things I absolutely wanted to say are this. First, if you can, watch it in FRENCH version with of course subs if you are English or American; why? Because nearly every actor here is french - except Burt Lancaster and some German characters who are German or English - Paul Scofield who is British. So, in french spoken version, all french actors will speak in their genuine language; only Lancaster will be dubbed, but after all, an American who plays an authentic born Frenchman has the right to speak french. See? And most of all, in the french spoken version, German characters among them speak all in German. And in the English spoken version, EVERY ONE speaks English, even french characters and German among them. NONSENSE. So, in resume, please, if you can of course, choose the french spoken version. And the second thing on which I insist is this: a longer version exists of this movie, a version that I watched some decades earlier and that I have never seen since. In this long version, you have a tremendous sequence where the Paul Scofield's character - German officer fascinated by paintings - enters a little church and stands still, like a statue, whilst he admires a little icon painting. As a Christian who would see Jesus moving just in front of him. This scene is absolutely terrific, if you already know the true nature of the character. And this scene has never been shown since. I am very sad because of this. I absolutely wanted to say this folks, about this pure masterpiece.