A Midnight Train
With the allies in the ascendancy the German forces are planning to retreat out of France and for art lover Colonel Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) he wants to take the great paintings from the Paris museums with him. With crates packed full of master pieces and loaded on a train he is keen to get going. But the French resistance have received orders that not only are the artwork to be prevented from leaving France they cannot be destroyed. With the resistance numbers dwindling station master Labiche (Burt Lancaster) must come up with a cunning way of preventing the train and the artwork leaving the area.
Conflict after the conflict is a way to describe "The Train" a war movie which seems on paper should not be that interesting but in the end is surprisingly enthralling with so much going on. You know it is a simple premise, some French resistance fighters must stop the Germans taking great art work out of the country but there is so much more to this movie than first meets the eye and it is the so much more which makes it so entertaining.
What do I mean? Well for one we have Labiche who is jaded as the war comes to the end and many of his compatriots have paid the ultimate price. He doesn't understand what is so important about these pictures but will do what is needed although he doesn't believe they warrant the loss of anymore life. But as we watch his and others cunning plans to stall the departure of the train we not only witness how others are willing to die for the cause but also the dangers they faced from the allies trying to blow up the trains. There is so much more to "The Train" than this and pretty much right from the word go the heroics and deviousness of Labiche and his men captivate you.
But then there is the cinematography and scene after scene is beautifully staged with great and sometimes unusual camera angles to take in so much detail. In fact "The Train" is one of the best examples of a later black & white movie you will find as it helps to create the atmosphere whilst also giving every scene a richness to the point there are times you just want to pause the movie so they you can drink in everything be it the architecture of a building to the items lying around a room.
What this all boils down to is that "The Train" is not a complicated movie but a totally enthralling one with entertainment coming not just from the tense story but also the great use of the black & white imagery combined with great camera angles.
