The Train Film 4 now.

First film i was allowed to go and see with my school friends unsupervised aged 9.1964 Laindon picture theatre in Essex.

Terrifically dark and menacing in B/L.

I've got it on record whilst I'm watching the racing, I've never seen it before and it looks very good in the reviews, 7.9 on imdb which is a very high score.

Really good film Slippy, very atmospheric and Lancaster and Paul Scofield are brilliant.

A terrific film , a 9/10 for me.

Love this film. Powerful and menacing with a tiny bit of romance in it too.

It's brilliantly done.

Found this review for it, doesn't get any better imo.

Johnny Rosen
2 weeks ago
THIS ASTONISHINGLY REALISTIC FILM NOIR IS, IN MY OPINON, THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE. PERIOD. JOHN FRANKENHEIMER WAS A GENIUS,  THE SHRILL, SHRIEKING TRAIN WHISTLES...THE GRITTY FACES OF THE ACTORS...THE . BARBARIC, TRUE-TO-LIFE CRUELTY OF THE GERMANS ....AND BURT LANCASTER'S BRILLIANT PERFORMANCE HAVE MADE "THE TRAIN" THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME.  I HAVE WATCHED IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER. THANK YOU, MR FRANKENHEIMER, AND THANK YOU MR. LANCASTER, FOR ENRICHING MY LIFE, FOR EDUCATING ME, AND FOR REVEALING TO ME JUST HOW BRAVE AND INGENIOUS THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE WERE AS THEY STRUGGLED TO SURVIVE AND TO ESCAPE FROM THE BRUTALITY OF THE GERMANS.  VIVE LE RESISTANCE!

Holy schmoly, "The Train" gets 100% on 'Rotten Tomatoes', I've never seen that score before!

"John Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster in the tense spy thriller The Train. Lancaster plays Labiche, a French railway inspector. Allied forces are threatening to liberate Paris, so Col. Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) is ordered to move the priceless works of art from the Jeu de Paume Museum to the fatherland. The head of the museum (Suzanne Flon) attempts to convince Labiche that he should sabotage the train on which they are transporting the art. Labiche is more focused on destroying a trainload of German weapons. After his friend is killed trying to stop the train with the art, and after a consciousness-raising conversation with a hotel owner (Jeanne Moreau), Labiche resolves to save the antiquities. Lancaster and Frankenheimer had worked together previously on both Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May."

I'm so glad I recorded it now and looking forward to watching it later in the week, cheers for the heads up stewarts rise.

stewarts - the reference to the 'shrieking train whistles' is very apt.

41st bestist filum in my film database.

Great thing about this film is that Lancaster and the other actors did all their own stunts, inc the fella who climbed over the coal tender to unhook the carriages from the engine, incredibly dangerous. No model trains used and the spectacular crashes between 2 trains were filmed in one take and extremely dangerous, seven cameras were totally destroyed in the recording, definitely no computer graphics or trickery used in the making of this stunning film.

Excellent movie. Another very good WWII film in a similar mould, i.e. Black and white and involves trains is the classic Czech movie entitled Closely Observed Trains.

Agree, Frankenheimer made some great movies, esp during the 60's and 70's, including The French Connection II and a rarely-seen gem called The Fixer (would love to see that movie again).

hfink here is the full movie.

The Fixer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-zEeV1gum4

Thanks mac! Would never have thought of looking on YouTube for it...I'd better watch it before it gets taken down!  Cheers mate.

Best film I saw Burt in was Ulzana's Raid ... great western film ... released in 1972

You are welcome hfink. Enjoy!

Ulzana`s Raid was a great film. With the German topic of the thread it made me think of the famous Karl May western books Winnetou. A terrific read and a favourite of Hitler. The Germans made films a mini tv series based on the books. Not seen them so can`t comment.