(r.),
Michel Simon (background) and
Burt Lancaster in
The Train Frankenheimer inherited the film from another director,
Arthur Penn. Lancaster fired Penn after three days of filming in France, and asked Frankenheimer to assume the director role. Penn envisioned a more intimate film that would muse on the role art played in Lancaster's character and why he would risk his life to save the country's great art from the Nazis. He did not intend to give much focus to the mechanics of the train operation itself. But Lancaster wanted more emphasis on action to ensure that the film would be a hit after the failure of his film
The Leopard. The production was shut down briefly while the script was rewritten, and the budget doubled. As he recounts in the Champlin book, Frankenheimer used the production's desperation to his advantage in negotiations. He demanded and was given the following: his name was made part of the title, "John Frankenheimer's The Train"; the French co-director, demanded by French tax laws, was not allowed ever to set foot on set; he was given total final cut; and a Ferrari. Much of the film was shot on location.
The Train contains multiple real train wrecks. The Allied bombing of a rail yard was accomplished with real dynamite, as the French rail authority needed to enlarge the track gauge. This can be observed by the shockwaves traveling through the ground during the action sequence. Producers realized after filming that the story needed another action scene and reassembled some of the cast for a
Spitfire attack scene inserted into the first third of the film. French Armée de l'Air
Douglas A-26 Invaders are also seen later in the film. 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. Frankenheimer remarked on the DVD commentary, "Incidentally, I think this was the last big action picture ever made in black and white, and I am personally so grateful that it was filmed in black and white. I think the black and white adds tremendously to the movie." Throughout the film, Frankenheimer often juxtaposed the value of art with the value of human life. 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.
Locations Filming took place in several locations, including:
Acquigny,
Calvados;
Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis; and
Vaires, Seine-et-Marne. The shots span from Paris to Metz. Much of the film is centered in the fictional town of "Rive-Reine". '
Circular journey' Actual train route: Paris,
Vaires, Rive-Reine,
Montmirail,
Châlons-sur-Marne,
Sainte-Menehould,
Verdun,
Metz,
Pont-à-Mousson,
Sorcy-Saint-Martin (Level Crossing),
Commercy,
Vitry-le-François, Rive-Reine. Planned route from Metz to Germany:
Remilly,
Teting (level crossing),
Saint Avold,
Zweibrücken.
Locomotives used as Papa Boule The chief locomotives used were examples of the former
''Chemins de fer de l'Est'' Series 11s 4-6-0, which the SNCF classified as 1-230-B. 1-230.B.517 was specified as Papa Boule's locomotive and features particularly prominently, flanked by sister locomotives 1-230.B.739 and 1-230.B.855. A decommissioned locomotive doubled as the 517 for the crash scene (a production still of the aftermath from the rear shows the tender identification number reading 1-230.B.754), and another was given a plywood armored casing to depict a
German Army locomotive for the yard manoeuvres-and-raid scene. 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. Other engines of various classes can be seen on background sidings in the run-by scenes and aerial views of the yard, among them
SNCF Class 141R 2-8-2 engines, which were not supplied to France until after the war as part of the railway's reconstruction, as well as
USATC S100 Class 0-6-0T tank engines, designated by the SNCF as 030TU, which were used by the approaching Allied forces. ==Reception==