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The Train Overview:

The Train (1964) was a Thriller/Suspense - War Film directed by John Frankenheimer and Arthur Penn (uncredited) and produced by Jules Bricken.

Academy Awards 1965 --- Ceremony Number 38 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best WritingFranklin Coen, Frank DavisNominated
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The Train BlogHub Articles:

Say “Cheese” 012 – The Train Killer (1984)

By Michael on Apr 16, 2018 From Durnmoose Movie Musings

This past Christmas my son got me a Mill Creek box set called Awesomely Cheesy Movies. 100 movies on 24 disks, it’s actually a combination of two of their earlier released sets, “The Swinging Seventies”, and “The Excellent Eighties”. For those of you who may not be fam... Read full article

The Train (1964)

By Beatrice on Apr 3, 2018 From Flickers in Time

The Train Directed by John Frankenheimer Written by Franklin Coehn and Frank Davis from a novel by Rose Valland1964/France/Italy/USA Les Films Ariane/Les Productions Artistes Associes/Dear Film Produzione Repeat viewing/Netflix rental An action-packed winner for when you are in the mood for susp... Read full article

Review: Strangers on the Train (1951)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Mar 30, 2018 From 4 Star Films

Strangers on the Train is conceived in its first few minutes of dialogue when the charismatic bon vivant Bruno (Robert Walker) ingratiates himself on tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger). Bruno is a big idea-man, constantly talking and thinking and wheedling his way into other people’s l... Read full article

Me when all my site’s search queries are “tied to the train tracks silent movie” and “silent star squeaky voice” Animated GIF

By Fritzi Kramer on Dec 24, 2014 From Movies Silently

By Fritzi Kramer on December 24, 2014 in Blog, GIF, Humor I pay attention to the keywords that bring people to my site and they can often reveal a lot about what people think of silent movies. The keywords and terms also let me know about shortages on my site and I do my best to fill any gaps that m... Read full article

The Train (1964) with Burt Lancaster

By Greg Orypeck on Sep 4, 2014 From Classic Film Freak

Share This!“The art train is not to be destroyed.  Orders are to mark it so that the planes will pass it up.”— a French Resistance leader Some critics, and even that lesser breed of us, those mere movie observers and hyper film buffs, are rumored to enjoy writing negative reviews, not usua... Read full article

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The Train Quotes:

Labiche: You crazy bastard.
Labiche: Where are the Allies?
Resistance leader: It has been arranged for a French division to reach Paris first. A gesture.
Labiche: Gesture! They can make gestures! Let them make one for Pesquet, or Jacques! That kid of Lefèvre's... he'd appreciate a gesture.
Resistance leader: London agrees the art is important. Anything we can do to save it... but they leave it up to us.
Labiche: Why not? What can they lose? This morning we had four men left in this group. Now we have three. One, two, three.
Pesquet: Bernard?
Labiche: We started with eighteen. Like your paintings, mademoiselle, we couldn't replace them. For certain things we take the risk, but I won't waste lives on paintings.
Miss Villard: They wouldn't be wasted! Excuse me, I know that's a terrible thing to say. But those paintings are part of France. The Germans want to take them away. They've taken our land, our food, they live in our houses, and now they're trying to take our art. This beauty, this vision of life, born out of France, our special vision, our trust... we hold it in trust, don't you see, for everyone? This is our pride, what we create and hold for the world. There are worse things to risk your life for than that.
Labiche: I'm sorry, mademoiselle, we can't help you.
Christine: Men want to be heroes, and their widows mourn.
Labiche: Thank you.
Christine: I don't want your thanks. If they'd caught me helping you, I would have been shot.
Labiche: I know. I'm sorry.
Christine: You think you can just run in and out of here and make trouble? I run a hotel, not a madhouse. Who's going to pay for the door? Who's going to pay for the lock? Do you think money grows on trees?
Labiche: There's a war...
Christine: You talk about the war. I talk about what it costs!
Labiche: I'll be leaving in a few hours. You can go back to your good customers.
Christine: They pay. That's what I'm in business for.
Labiche: You should be paid. How much for the damage?
Christine: One hundred francs.
[He pays her.]
Labiche: How much for saving my life?
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The Train Facts
The engine that we see from track level as it's derailed was moving faster than intended. Three of the five cameras filming the derailment were smashed.
Director Arthur Penn oversaw the development of the film and directed the first day of shooting. The next day was a holiday. Burt Lancaster, dissatisfied with Penn's conception of the picture, had him fired and replaced by John Frankenheimer. Penn envisioned a more intimate film that would muse on the role art played in the French character, and why they would risk their lives to save the country's great art from the Nazis. He did not intend to give much focus to the mechanics of the train operation itself. Frankenheimer said that in the original script Penn wanted to shoot, the train did not leave the station until page 90. The production was shut down briefly while the script was rewritten. Lancaster told screenwriter Walter Bernstein the day Penn was fired, "Frankenheimer is a bit of a whore, but he'll do what I want." What Lancaster wanted was more emphasis on action in order to ensure that the film was a hit--after the failure of his film The Leopard--by appealing to a broader audience.
According to the book the 'Variety Movie Guide', this movie was "Made in French and English in France, it was entirely lensed in real exteriors with unlimited access to old French rolling stock of the last war."
In real life the museum's paintings were indeed loaded into a train for shipment to Germany, but fortunately, the elaborate deception seen in the movie was not really required. The train was merely routed onto a ring railway and circled around and around Paris until the Allies arrived.
The air raid on the yards was filmed at Gargenville yard, outside Paris. More than 50 people under Lee Zavitz needed six weeks to plant and wire all the charges, which were blown up in less than a minute. This was done by a special arrangement with the French National Railway, which had been seeking to modernize the yard but lacked the funds to do so.
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