Last night TCM showed The Train (1964). I knew of this film, that it was in black and white, that it starred Burt Lancaster, and that the basic premise was Nazis trying to steal French art treasures and transport them to Germany near the end of World War II. That was about it.
I knew this film had been shown on television before, and I'd always skipped it. I'm a train freak myself, especially steam trains, but I have to confess I'm a bit xenophobic when it comes to steam locomotives. To this American, European steam looks weird. (At least I'm honest about it.) Combine that with my general disinterest in World War II movies.
Last night, however, I decided to give it a shot. There was nothing else on that I wanted to watch, and I didn't feel like playing a video, so I shrugged and decided that any steam locomotive was better than no steam locomotive. Now I have to say that I'm very glad I watched it and I would watch it again. I found it quite gripping. I believe the running time is more than two hours (I haven't checked), but the time went by very quickly.
Before the opening credits, I thought I recognized the Nazi colonel, and I did: It was Paul Scofield (who surely had the role of his life in A Man for All Seasons, one of my great favorites). I did not know he was in it. I loved the way the French changed the railway station signs to fool the Nazis into thinking they had crossed the border into Germany when in fact they had never left France.
Something I've noticed about movies (or TV shows, for that matter) that feature steam locomotives. It takes water to run a steam locomotive, yet I guess, unless it is somehow essential to the plot, you never see the trains having to stop for water. (In some places water was "scooped" from pans located between the rails, so the locomotive could take on water "on the fly" and not have to stop.)