In John Frankenheimer’s nail-biting WWII thriller, the French resistance enlists a railway inspector (Burt Lancaster) to help with a near-impossible mission: sabotage a train full of priceless art looted by the Nazis without damaging the priceless cargo. It’s Frankenheimer at full blast, an edge-of-your-seat action classic filmed during his incredible 1962-66 run of Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, Seconds and Grand Prix.
“The stark, deep-focus images in The Train have a clarifying effect on the action that makes the film virtually unthinkable in color, playing as if the newsreel before a matinee suddenly morphed into the main attraction. Using almost all real locations – and blowing up many real trains and trucks, too -Frankenheimer makes a kick-ass genre film seem like history writ large” – Scott Tobias, The Dissolve
Kim Morgan discusses The Train on the New Beverly blog.
