The Train (1965)

Directed by John Frankenheimer. Starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Wolfgang Preiss, Albert Rémy, Jeanne Moreau, Michel Simon, Jean Bouchard, Suzanne Flon, Charles Millot, Arthur Brass.

With the Allies closing in near the end of the second world war, German colonel Scofield works to ship stolen artwork from Paris to Germany by train; Lancaster is the railway inspector working with the French Resistance who sets out to intercept. Inspired by real events, though dramatized with significant license for a large-scale, pulse-pounding production; Frankenheimer eschews models for the real deal (actual trains crashing into each other, a real trainyard getting dynamited to mimic a saturation bombing, etc.), and the weight and physicality of it is always felt. Tense, high-powered action throughout, photographed in deep-focus black & white (suitably inky and grimy considering the setting/mood), with Scofield making for a memorably determined antagonist, though it fails to give its hero an especially convincing rationale for risking his life repeatedly for this particular cause (he’s no art lover, and those supporting the mission expound almost entirely in symbolic terms), rendering all the masterful artwork as little more than a MacGuffin. Presented as escapist melodrama without the cultural/philosophical gravitas, though such burdens may have been an albatross for this kind of streamlined, visceral presentation.

81/100