The Train is a 1964 war film directed by John Frankenheimer[1] and starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau.

The picture's screenplay—written by Franklin Coen, Frank Davis, and Walter Bernstein—is loosely based on the non-fiction book Le front de l'art by Rose Valland, who documented the works of art placed in storage that had been looted by Nazi Germany from museums and private art collections.

Set in August 1944 during World War II, it pits French Resistance-member Paul Labiche (Lancaster) against German Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Scofield), who is attempting to move stolen art masterpieces by train to Germany.

After the works he selects are removed from the Jeu de Paume Museum, curator Mademoiselle Villard seeks help from the French Resistance.

Given the imminent liberation of Paris by the Allies, SNCF (French National Railways) workers associated with the Resistance need only delay the train for a few days, but it is a dangerous operation and must be done without risking the priceless cargo.

In an elaborate ruse, they reroute the train, temporarily changing railway station signage to make the German escort believe they are heading to Germany when they have actually looped back round towards Paris.

That night, Labiche and Didont meet Spinet again, along with Jacques's young nephew Robert, and plan to paint the tops of three wagons white to warn off Allied aircraft from bombing the art train.

Robert recruits railroad workers and friends of his uncle and stages a false air raid alarm by tampering with a siren, so that the Germans are distracted and the operation can begin.

Labiche attempts to use plastic explosives to destroy the locomotive, only to find it carrying French hostages placed by the Germans.

No crane is available to rerail the train, so Von Waldheim flags down an army convoy retreating on a nearby road, learning that a French armored division is not far behind.

[7] The film includes sequences involving long tracking shots and wide-angle lenses with deep focus photography.

Noteworthy tracking shots include Labiche attempting to flag down a train and jumping onto the moving locomotive, a long dolly shot of von Waldheim traveling through a classification yard at high speed in a motorcycle sidecar, and Labiche rolling down a mountain and across a road, finally staggering down to a railroad track.

A brief montage ends the film, intercutting the crates full of paintings with the dead bodies of the French hostages before a final shot shows Labiche walking away down the road.

An ancient "Bourbonnais" type 030.C 0-6-0 (N° 757), apparently decommissioned by SNCF, was deliberately wrecked to block the line; it moved faster than the film crew anticipated and smashed three of the five cameras placed near to the track in the process.