The first difference about this powerful black-and-white war flick is the sound—the Michel Jarre score is used sparingly, counter-point with the rumble and screech of steam locomotives. The result is a somber tone that gives John Frankenheimer's The Train a brooding reality. The second difference is that the main characters are all either German or French. No American parachutists, no plucky British spies—just French resisting the retreating Germans.
The third is that the characters played by Burt Lancaster, Jeanne Moreau, and Paul Scofield are sometimes upstaged by a fourth major player: the trains themselves. WWII-age locomotives were brought from all over the world to film this epic, and that realism gives a great deal of power to the role played by the trains. Frankenheimer has said of Train, "I wanted all the realism possible. There are no tricks in this film. When trains crash together, they are real trains. There is no substitute for that kind of reality."
The story is simple and gripping, with an elite-vs-everyman quality. Scofield's Colonel von Waldheim obviously loves French art, truly appreciating its worth on all levels. Yet he "sells" taking a train full of art plunder out of Paris in advance of its liberation to his superiors in a coldly pragmatic way; art is a weapon because of its value. "Would you leave 50 million francs in Paris?" Scofield asks. He gets his train, and we see crates labeled 2 DEGAS, 5 MATISSE, 2 BRAQUE, 3 RENOIR and so on, being loaded with art.
Burt Lancaster's French everyman, Paul Labiche, at first seems to be cooperating with the Germans. Through subtle clues, we see that Labiche is a covert resistance artist, ready to balk the Germans whenever his beloved trains are not at risk. His position as railroad operating manager gives him plenty of opportunity, especially now that the Germans are preparing to leave. To Labiche, the trainload of art is just another commodity the Germans want. Von Waldheim makes this clear in a speech near the end of the film, in which the German ubermensch philosophy takes a sneering turn into artistic elitism.
Labiche! Here's your prize, Labiche. Some of the greatest paintings in the world. Does it please you, Labiche? Give you a sense of excitement in just being near them? A painting means as much to you as a string of pearls to an ape. You won by sheer luck: you stopped me without knowing what you were doing, or why. You are nothing, Labiche—a lump of flesh. The paintings are mine; they always will be; beauty belongs to the man who can appreciate it!
From the air raid on the train yard to the final machine-gunning beside the derailed train, the film is punctuated by reminders that there is a larger war going on. It needs that reminder, because the focus of the film tightens to the conflict between von Waldheim and Labiche. On von Waldheim's side are the full powers of the German occupation forces, those that can be diverted to the theft of French art. Labiche can call on the wily efforts of his fellow railroaders all along the line to Berlin. He finds that even apparent collaborators, like Moreau's hotelier character Christine (or Labiche himself) are also capable of rising to the resistance.
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