The Train
Director: John Frankenheimer
Year: 1964
Rating: 8.0
Director John Frankenheimer was on quite a run of films with this one - Birdman
of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train and Seconds.
He had some good films after this but nothing as good as these. Burt Lancaster
starred in three of them and in this one he plays a train station master
who is part of the French resistance. He allows himself to be surly, unkempt
and rather dull with a cigarette constantly dangling from his mouth like
a forgotten thought. He may feel too American especially compared to his
co-stars who are mainly French - including Jeanne Moreau. But the film is
a story of two obsessives - a German General played by Paul Scofield who
is trying to ship out hundreds of classic French paintings by the great masters
and Lancaster who is intent to stop that from happening. The Glory of France
he says. It is a constant tense interchange between the two men as they play
cat and mouse with one another. It is a terrific film that simply picks up
speed as it goes and the tableau that the film ends with is horrific and
stunning.