If you’re going to give your film a simple, descriptive but commonplace title, you’re going to have to make sure it’s a good film if you want people to remember it even a year later, let alone nearly four decades later. This 1964 Burt Lancaster film currently has a 7.8 / 10 on IMDb, so it seems that there are some who remember it and rate it well. And well they should, because in at least this instance, IMDb’s aggregation of voters has the right of it.
The Train is a smart war-time action film, but it’s not like most war films. Set in World War II, it doesn’t focus on the front lines, but is centered around the French Resistance, and one particular train: a train carrying the greatest paintings of French (and European) history. Nazi Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) has taken the paintings and is planning to have them transported to Germany. Paul Labiche (Lancaster) is the French Resistance member who winds up trying to divert the train long enough for the Allied Forces to end the war and prevent France from losing a piece of its heritage. Continue reading
