THE TRAIN (1964) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: John Frankenheimer
Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau,
Suzanne Flon, Wolfgang Preiss, Michel Simon,
Albert Remy, Jacques Marin, Paul Bonifias
As the Allies close in on Paris late in World War Two, a German army officer loads a train with some of the world's most valuable paintings, hoping to ship them out of France before the liberation. Only sabotage and a dwindling but determined band of railroad resistance fighters stand in the way. An exciting, suspenseful action thriller with an ironic underlying theme: The people taking the risks and dying to save the paintings know nothing about art, while the man trying to steal them is a connoisseur. Arguably the best of the Lancaster/Frankenheimer collaborations, brilliantly shot and crisply edited, ending with a grim visual statement on the idiocy of war and the relative value of art and human life.
Jeanne Moreau
(1928-2017)
