The Train

If you enjoyed Frankenheimer's Ronin and don't yet know this classic from forty years earlier - you're in for a treat. Both movies share an uncluttered, realistic feel, stylish camera work and innovative action sequences. If you think a black and white movie from the sixties isn't worth trying - take a chance! This could become your new favorite Sunday afternoon movie.

Don't worry that it's in B & W (improves the cinematography anyway), and don't worry that Burt Lancaster has the only American accent in a sea of French, German & English accents. This is very good wartime drama. Based loosely on real looting of works of art by the Wermacht in WWII, Lancaster plays a French rail worker, spurned to action, when a senior German army officer (Paul Schofield) plans to transport stolen art back to Germany through his town. The film benefits immensely by being filmed on location on the grimy French rail network, which by the early sixties' still looks authentically forties'. Accent apart, Lancaster is very believable in the role, and matches Schofield in the acting stakes, as the two men move inexorably to the climax you know is coming. The budget must have been pretty good too, as the action set-pieces are top-notch, seeing that CGI is three decades away.