Anti-fascist film: The Train (1964)
Sabotage and subterfuge are the tools of the French Resistance in this exciting WWII movie
The Train (1964)
Directed by John Frankenheimer
Written by Franklin Coen, Frank Davis, and Walter Bernstein (uncredited)
Based on “Le Front de l’Art” by Rose Valland
Set in 1944, this action picture is based on real events that occurred toward the end of World War II. Hurriedly evacuating Paris as Allied forces closed in, the Nazis lifted dozens of irreplaceable, priceless French artworks from museums and private (Jewish) owners and loaded them aboard a train headed for Germany. As documented in a book called “Le Front de l’Art”1 by Rose Valland, who was an art curator and a member of the French Resistance, the plot was stymied by Resistance fighters who delayed the train, finally derailed it, and captured it before it left the country.
This compelling story was perfect for Hollywood in the 1960s, when a slew of movies about WWII brought the war back to the now-middle aged American audiences who had fought it. Walter Bernstein, one of the Hollywood Ten screenwriters who were blacklisted in the 1950s, wrote the initial screenplay.
In the early 1960s, Burt Lancaster was as hot an actor as there was in Hollywood. He had won an Oscar for “Elmer Gantry” in 1961 and a Best Actor nomination for “Birdman of Alcatraz” in 1963. The latter film — the third movie Lancaster appeared in that was directed by John Frankenheimer — was a huge hit. So when director Arthur Penn was fired from the production of “The Train” after one day of shooting, Lancaster — who was essentially in charge of the film’s production — turned again to Frankenheimer. Bernstein, the blacklisted writer who wasn’t going to get a credit anyway, resigned, and Lancaster hired other writers to adapt the script into an action picture more to his liking. Originally a circus performer, Lancaster loved doing his own stunts, and — despite being 50 years old — loaded the picture with feats such as jumping onto and being pushed off a moving train.
The result is a thrilling picture based on a simple idea: The French Resistance has to stop a train loaded with “the glory of France” without damaging the cargo before it can cross the border into Germany. Lancaster plays a railway supervisor named Labiche, head of a Resistance cell of railway workers played by legendary French actors Michel Simon, Albert Rémy, and Charles Millot. Jeanne Moreau is featured as the proprietor of a village inn who gives refuge to Labiche as he’s hunted by German soldiers.
To accomplish its mission, the Resistance makes use of three primary tools of resistance: non-cooperation, subterfuge, and sabotage.
By now, many readers have heard of the declassified CIA “Simple Sabotage Field Manual.” Originating in the techniques used by Resistance movements in many countries during World War II, the guide — now widely available as a downloadable PDF and as a more readable ebook — has become hugely popular in 20252, for obvious reasons. The following passage is highly relevant to “The Train”:
Put metal dust or filings, fine sand, ground glass, emery dust (get it by pounding up an emery knife sharpener) and similar hard, gritty substances directly into lubrication systems. … They will overheat and stop motors which will need overhauling, new parts, and extensive repairs. ….
Try to commit acts for which large numbers of people could be responsible. For instance, if you blow out the wiring in a factory at a central fire box, almost anyone could have done it. On-the-street sabotage after dark, such as you might be able to carry out against a military car or truck, is another example of an act for which it would be impossible to blame you.
Do not be afraid to commit acts for which you might be blamed directly, so long as you do so rarely, and as long as you have a plausible excuse: you dropped your wrench across an electric circuit because an air raid had kept you up the night before and you were half-dozing at work.
Michel Simon plays a locomotive engineer named Papa Boule. Once convinced of the necessity of stopping the train, he places franc pieces into an engine bearing, knowing they will soon cause the locomotive to malfunction. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t disappear into the shadows once he has performed this act; he drives the train himself. And it turns out that after five years of occupation, the Nazis are aware of this trick. They discover the coins, find the same in Boule’s pockets, and summarily execute him. He doesn’t even have a “plausible excuse.”
Despite this act of sabotage which damages the locomotive, the engine is repaired overnight. The Resistance presses on. When the train departs for Germany, they resort to subterfuge: Alleging that they have to take an alternate route because of air raid damage, they throw switches that route the train on a loop that leads it back to its origin; at each station they pass, the signs that identify it are changed to those the train is supposed to pass on its way into Germany. This gains them another day. When the Allied army still hasn’t caught up with them, they conspire to cause train wrecks on the tracks, derail the train by loosening the spikes that hold the rails to the railbed, and other actions.
As it turns out — spoiler here — while they succeed in their mission, they do so at the cost of many lives. The calculation of the value of the collected brilliance of French art versus the value of human lives is one that is introduced at the beginning of the film. When we reach the end, Frankenheimer cuts between the crates of art on the train and the bodies of French hostages who are executed in one last act of casual cruelty by the retreating Germans. The film again asks the worth of the plot to save the art.
Readers may question the value of a Hollywood depiction of the good-versus-evil matchup between the French and the Nazis, especially if asked to apply it to our present situation. Clearly, the depiction of sabotage is both illuminating and inspiring for viewers. But there’s another reason why I will be including Hollywood productions in this survey of anti-fascism in film. As I pointed out in previous pieces, at one time the average citizen was steeped in the historical events of the years 1930-1960. They, or their parents — I was born in 1956 but my father lied about a severe medical condition to pass a physical and join the Army in 1943 — had personal experience of World War II. It was part of their memories. Even if their memories gradually became a nostalgic myth about the “greatest generation,” they knew what had happened and what victory they had achieved.
Today’s audiences have little knowledge of who the Nazis were, the causes of World War II, and the authoritarian systems it left behind in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Instead of the real (or even mythologized) deeds of dictators — Stalin killed more Ukranians than Putin could ever dream of3 — movies focus on post-apocalyptic settings because they enable a film’s characters to personally shoot as many enemies as possible. So to the extent that movies can and do document the deeds of fascists and the efforts of real movements to fight them, they provided an education to my generation. It would be nice if they did so again.
In the coming weeks and months, if the United States becomes an authoritarian country, activists will have to go beyond the gentle protests they now perform. What each person may do, and the risks they decide to shoulder when doing it is, of course, up to them.
The book was translated to English as “The Art Front.”
“Declassified CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism Is Suddenly Viral” by Jason Koebler. 404 Media, 29 January 2025. https://www.404media.co/declassified-cia-guide-to-sabotaging-fascism-is-suddenly-viral/