Product Details

• Actors: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau, Suzanne Flon, Michel Simon
• Directors: Arthur Penn, John Frankenheimer
• Writers: Albert Husson, Frank Davis, Franklin Coen, Howard Dimsdale, Nedrick Young
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English, German
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Home Entertainme
• VHS Release Date: June 24, 1992
• Run Time: 133 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302413400
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,690 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

This is one of John Frankenheimer's breathless gems--all marvelous action that never lets up. Burt Lancaster plays a French train engineer during the waning days of the German occupation who tries to prevent Nazi colonel Paul Scofield from transporting a precious art collection back to Germany. Utilizing sabotage and cunning deception, Lancaster and his Resistance colleagues stall for time with the Allies on their way. It's a brilliantly made film, showing off Lancaster's acrobatic skills (he performed all of his own stunts) and Frankenheimer's sense of pacing and brilliant use of space. It's choreographed with the utmost precision (those are real explosions during the pivotal strafing sequence) and extremely authentic in its details. Lancaster is in rare minimalist form, and Scofield manages to extract intelligence and sympathy. A firecracker action film shot in crisp black and white, with yet another telling audio commentary by the always instructive director. --Bill Desowitz

Amazon.com

This tense, 1964 action drama from John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) stars Burt Lancaster as a member of the French Resistance trying to prevent Nazi looters from taking valuable art treasures out of the country. A great ride all the way, with Frankenheimer at his inimitable best. This is a true, human-scale action movie of the sort we used to think of before "action" meant blowing up asteroids in space. Kinetic but almost rueful in tone, the film's chases and fights aren't just eye candy but rather encourage audience involvement in moral stakes. Crisp and serious performances all around from Lancaster and 1960s icons Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frankenheimer's Overlooked Classic: The Best Action Film, July 7, 2002

By 

PETER R TALBOT (Harrison, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Train (DVD)

When Burt Lancaster called on director John Frankeheimer yet again to rescue another picture from another director who had left the project, the call took Frankenheimer to Paris to bring his brilliant black and white extreme depth of focus shots to bear on thought provoking subject matter.

La Bisch, the unwilling resistance man late in WWII (Lancaster) is pitted despite his objections against a cultured German general who is attempting to take every painted masterpiece out of Paris that can be found.

Knowing that delays to shipment in the face of the german retreat and allied advance, La Bisch uses both ingenuity and enormous physical effort to attempt to block the movement of a train laden with stolen art, eastbound from Paris.

The plot twists are the stuff of legend, and each twist provokes controversial positions regarding the importance of art and the brevity of human life.

The long shot action scenes in this film are brilliant, and Lancaster, who was injured during filming, performs much of the extraordinary scenes in the movie with a real (not feigned) limp.

Fine ensemble cast, including many of the best French character actors of the time, a serious script saved by brevity from the melodramatic and arguably the best camerawork and editing of any action film in history (you read right) make this film superior to Frankenheimer's other B&W films from the period (e.g., The Manchurian Candidate and even The Birdman of Alcatraz).

The Train belongs in any serious English language cine collection. This is one of the top 100 films of all time.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps Frankenheimers Best, December 2, 2001

By 

Mad Dog (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Train (DVD)

Fankenheimer is a director's director - something of an icon in contemporary American Film. He has worked with the best, and has made some of the most innovative and intelligent movies of the last forty years. While always a director of "smart" films, he mastered the action-film early in his career and to a certain extent this has over-shadowed his deeper (and darker) side.

On a superficial level "The Train" is the last of the "full-scale" action films. They blow up everything in sight for real, they crash real steam-locomotives, and many of the actors are doing their own stunts. In fact Burt Lancaster not only does all his own stunts, he stands in for other actors too!

But unlike most action-flicks, "The Train" goes deeper. Lancaster plays the French resistance leader asked to stop Nazi Colonel Paul Schofeild from leaving Paris with a train load of paintings. "Let them have the paintings," Lancaster replies. He doesn't see the point in risking anyone's life for a work of art. "But they are the soul of France". And this is where the real interest (and the subtext) starts.

Imagine your house is on fire. You run inside and you can save your favorite pet, or the Van Gogh hanging on the wall. What do you choose? Well that's the thesis behind "The Train" - why are these paintings worth dying for? Why are they worth killing for? (Incidentally Lancaster took a similar position a few years later in "Castle Keep"). Lancaster could care less about the paintings. And Schofeild will kill anyone and anything that tries to stop him leaving with them. Not only is it a clash of cultures, it's a clash about culture. A Nazi kills to save the artwork his own ideology has called degenerate; a partisan kills to save the art he has never wanted to see.

The DVD has an excellent commentary by Frankenheimer. He describes the behind the scenes action, the difficulties and joys of this production, the demolishion of locomotives (and cameras), and the joys of working with Burt Lancaster. And he's very articulate about it. The DVD is also in the original wide-screen aspect, opening up the image considerably.

If you're a fan of the war film or the action genre, The Train is a must have. And if oyu just like good film making, then it's still a must see.

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, , ..., July 30, 2000

By 

Melimar "emiramar" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Train (DVD)

John Frankenheimer's "The Train" is an outstanding Black and White WWII ("action") film from the unforgettable 60's, when much emphasis was placed on good acting and characterization.

Close to the end of the war, while withdrawing, the Nazis attempted to lute famous French museums, and transport to Germany art treasures, hundreds of paintings of world fame - part of France's national identity. Among many popular French performers, such as Michel Simon ("Le diable et les dix commandements") and Jeanne Moreau ("Jules et Jim") - remember ? we've seen her in Beson's "La Femme Nikita") shine America's unforgettable Burt Lancaster as Labiche, the French "cheminot" who opposes England's Paul Scofield, perfectly cast as von Waldheim, the German colonel obsessed with "his mission" to "save" the painting by having them transported by train from Paris to Berlin.

Real life adventure with a believable plot, attention to details, image, dialogues, and ever growing tension until the final "denouement". It's the same director who gave us the more recent "Ronin" (filmed in France), and classics, such as "Seven Days in May" (also with Burt Lancaster) and "The Manchurian Candidate", and, if want to see more of Paul Scofield, consider watching one more time, Fred Zinneman's "A Man of All Seasons".

Very good DVD rendition of a truly great film from John Frankenheimer !