Great Film overall

Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Real surprise, this for me, particularly bearing in mind the length (which I wasn't aware of till after watching) never mind the genre! But, forget 'long war film' and think Burt Lancaster giving his all, low key naturalistic acting and a stinking physical performance. It appears at first as if he is just going to be some suited 'yes' man for the Germans but then gets put upon to drive the contentious train. We are not quite sure at the start as to who cares what about this enormous collection of French impressionist paintings and by the end we are wondering about human life versus oil paintings. In between there is the most incredible non stop, human story driven, massive action film with the most amazing steam train action I've ever seen. Nobody comes out of this particularly well but that we are not held up for mournful moments with dying children or romantic pauses for divided lovers, just full on desperate people getting on and doing what seems best without to much pause for thought or much else. The night scenes are particularly effective with the great monstrous engines pulsing along, smoke billowing. Aircraft attacks add to the thrills but it is still Lancaster that dominates the screen. What a presence.

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.

The importance of train as a unique means of transport was depicted by American director John Frankenheimer in his famous film "The Train" which made an effective use of three different film making genres : action, thriller and war. His film was set in August 1945, a week prior to liberation of Paris by allied forces. This was a crucial period for desperate German army as it knew that the defeat was imminent. However, one clever army official decided to use all his might in order to deprive France of its important treasures of art. Those who watched this film at the time of its release in 1964 would not have failed to recognize it as a pure commercial film with big names from American as well as French cinema. However, its popularity doesn't end only on a minor detail. 'The Train' appealed also to intellectual class as it made a strong case for art to be treated as an essential element in promoting a nation's culture which needs to be protected at all costs. Based on the book "Le Front De L'Art" by Rose Valland, a French art historian who was also the principal member of "La Résistance" movement in France, 'Le Train' included a serious discussion with divergent views about art especially its importance for a layman. The French camp was victorious for having realized the importance of important works of art for France. Although Germany is considered an important force in the field of philosophy, it had close to no admiration for art as German army colonel Franz Von Waldheim termed important works of art as 'degenerate art' (Entartete Kunst). His hypocrisy was revealed to all when he did not hesitate to plunder what he termed 'degenerate art' by calling it useful for his country as it would fetch millions of dollars. Actors Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield skillfully presented the great art versus commerce divide. They were able supported by other important actors of French cinema such as Suzanne Flon, Michel Simon and Jeanne Moreau.

I agree that this movie is one of the greatest. One way to judge the quality of a movie is by how many number times one can watch it and still not be bored. After some movies I never want to see them again… ever. The Train, however, is one of those movies that I have watched many times over, and will again.However, the main reason I am writing this review is to mention that the DVD I have, like many new DVD's, has an option to play a talk-over by someone associated with the movie. Here John Frankenheimer has that role. I believe his work here is the best and finest talk-over job ever done for a movie DVD. His performance here should be held up as the finest example of this type of work. Anyone considering doing a DVD talk-over for a movie should listen to Frankenheimer here and replicate the approach. How many times have I turn on a DVD movie talk-over and then, after a few minutes, turned off the babbling nonsense that has nothing to do with the movie. Frankenheimer performance here matches the movie. He does not talk about anything else but the making of the movie and follows his comments with the action seen on the movie. I enjoy this immensely. You should, too