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This is one of John Frankenheimer's breathless gems--all marvelousaction that never lets up. Burt Lancaster plays a French train engineer during the waning days of the German occupation who tries to prevent Nazi colonel Paul Scofield from transporting a precious art collection back to Germany. Utilizing sabotage and cunning deception, Lancaster and his Resistance colleagues stall for time with the Allies on their way. It's a brilliantly made film, showing off Lancaster's acrobatic skills (he performed all of his own stunts) and Frankenheimer's sense of pacing and brilliant use of space. It's choreographed with the utmost precision (those are real explosions during the pivotal strafing sequence) and extremely authentic in its details. Lancaster is in rare minimalist form, and Scofield manages to extract intelligence and sympathy. A firecracker action film shot in crisp black and white, with yet another telling audio commentary by the always instructive director. --Bill Desowitz ... Read more

Reviews (41)

One of the Best
An engrossing WELL-WRITTEN story (Hollywood, PLEASE take note), excellent cast, superb acting on the part of all the actors (not just the leads), painstaking staging and Frankenheimer's direction blending all these essential elements into a thoroughly enjoyable movie. What can you say about a rousing action movie that also makes you think? You can say it's rarely found in today's films. The primary quandry here is just what is the value of art in terms of the human lives that must be expended to preserve it? Is it truly a country's heritage or just oils on canvas for which the people who will have to die for it have little or no real appreciation? Is it worth saving because of its beauty or its value? And when does the cost of saving it become too high? The movie works on all levels, but the characters (and the actors portraying them) are exceptional. The stand-outs: Burt Lancaster, the yardmaster/resistance leader who really doesn't want to do this one last (and seemingly unimportant) job so close to the end of the war; Paul Scofield, the intense German colonel who loves (obsesses over) the art and is taking Lancaster's attempts to thwart his plans for it very personally; Wolfgang Preiss, the "good German officer" who does not agree with his superior but does his duty until he can do it no more; Jean Moreau, the pragmatic French hotel proprietress who has had to comfort one too many fellow widows and Michel Simon, the old engineer who fondly remembers dating a girl who posed for Renoir and decides to make this fight his own. No one who loves a good movie should miss this film. It's not just for action/war movie fans.

Underrated war actioner--art for whose sake?
_The Train_ has held up well since its release in 1965. Dismissed as an improbable shoot-em-up then, it tells a much richer story than the special-effects vehicles in the genre nowadays. Burt Lancaster isn't especially gallic as the Frenchman Labiche, but his acting talent and intensity soon steamroller any resistance the viewer may have. Paul Scofield is perfectly cast as a cultured monster, the Nazi colonel who is bent on spiriting the paintings away into Germany. One can easily picture him murdering hostages between sips of cognac.

Shot in black and white, the film is dark and greasy-looking. The screen is filled with churning railroad machinery much of the time, which dwarfs the people around it. The wheezing, snorting engines are also stars in this movie. Even the sky looks dirty in the daylight scenes. Oh yes, there's a sensational train wreck, too. Definitely less mindless than your average Rambo flick, but no less exciting.

The Train
Is a work of art worth a human life?
We are near the end of World War II. It's August 2, 1944, the "1511th day of German occupation" of Paris. German Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) enters a dark museum and turns a spotlight on a painting. He stares at it with the eyes of a lover beholding his best beloved. He turns another spotlight on another painting. The Hun is humanized, and we sympathize with his quiet passion.
It comes as a bit of a shock when he announces that he is taking the paintings, hundreds of Miros and Picassos and Matisses and others, with him when the Germans evacuate Paris. A resistance group, led by railroad worker Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster), is enlisted to stop them. Labiche initially refuses. It's one thing to blow up a train, dangerous enough - it's another to stop a train without damaging what's inside it. National heritage or not, men will die. There are more important targets than a train filled with art. Things change, though, and eventually Labiche and the remnants of his resistance group find themselves trying the impossible.
I've always been a little leery of Burt Lancaster. Maybe I was traumatized by viewing THE RAINMAKER or ELMER GANTRY at a young and impressionable age. He sometimes seems all horse teeth and braying charm and dis-tinct e-nunc-ee-a-shun. Not so here. In THE TRAIN he's restrained and natural and completely convincing. Scofield is equally strong as his brutal nemesis.
Sometimes the extras on a dvd aren't worth the bother, but I loved the director's commentary by the late John Frankenheimer. It was like taking a course in the art of film making.
Frankenheimer tells us he was trying to give the movie a realistic feel, which I understood before listening to the commentary track but didn't really understand how he went about it. One trick he used was to open the f-stop on the camera and keep everything in focus, something that would have been impossible if THE TRAIN wasn't shot in black and white. Everything is kept in focus and he keeps the background action busy and interesting.
Frankenheimer is an unabashed fan of Burt Lancaster, with whom he made five movies. Not only does Lancaster do all his own stunts in this one, including a dangerous backwards fall off of a moving train, he even fills in as a stunt double for another actor. The original stuntman made a fall off a roof look like an "olympic jump," and 'realism' was the keyword in this one. Lancaster did take a nice tumble off the tiles, but you've got to wonder about the wisdom of it all. Lancaster was injured during the filming of THE TRAIN; on his first day off in weeks he played a round of golf and twisted his knee when he stepped into a hole. His right knee swelled up 'like a basketball.' Frankenheimer shot Labiche in the leg halfway through the movie to explain the limp.
The only phony movie aspect to this movie is the dubbed voices of some of the French actors. You can't hide dubbing very well, and Frankenheimer doesn't have much to say about it. I wouldn't knock a star or even a half-star off because of it. This is a tremendously entertaining film.

Great movie.
There are an amazing amount of action films these days. Each one of them attempts to beat the last one's visual effects. And in this competition, hollywood has lost track of what makes a truly great action film... Skill. Most of the action films these days are entirely uncreative, and many of them are very, very boring. Who really want's to see a dozen tiles fall to the ground and break in slow motion, as films such as "the Matrix" use this technique constantly. But this film is different. It carries raw emotional power, and it's star, at age 50, did all of his own stunts, and even drove the locamotives that his character drives. This movie is awesome, and I highly recommend you buy this DvD. And by the way, this music track is a lot of fun to listen to when you're sick.

Perfect film on less- than- great DVD
The audio on the MGM DVD was lacking the full spectrum of audio, in my opinion. If you don't care so much about audio, it would be a 5 star DVD, but for those feeling that audio is an important factor, a star must be deducted. Bass and treble just weren't tweaked in DVD production which made the audio seem really flat, and I know that MGM could have produced a better job. It seems that a good number of the MGM DVDs lack the care and attention of producing consistently superior products.

The DVD gives the viewer options to listen to music only and has an option for director's comments during the film. I was at first dismayed because at the beginning of the movie, director John Frankenheimer just wouldn't open up. But he started sharing some interesting things as the movie progressed. There is also an 8- page booklet that gives some interesting production notes and history.

The video quality from, I think, an original film print is pristine. Frankenheimer's locations and times of filming were very effective in evoking a very dismal feeling as the European conflict was drawing to a conclusion. I love Frankenheimer's use of deep focus -- which is using wide angle lenses to have both near and far- away characters and scenes in focus -- to give a vision that many other filmmakers fail to incorporate effectively.

I'm glad that there was explanation in the film about why people were more concerned with paintings than people in a story that was loosely based on an actual event. Many westerners like Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster) would not care about the value of crates of artwork in a time of war, but schooling by caretaker Miss Villard (Suzanne Flon) expressed the passion and pride that the French feel for such paintings. This helped explain why some would scarifice their lives to save the crates. (Ms. Flon, born in 1918 is apparently still alive and acting, too.)

It's quite a story of saving "priceless" paintings at the expense of one's life. It seems like a WWII action film (which has its share of blowing stuff up), but its story actually weighs the value of art against the value of life. Labiche from the very beginning of his introduction battles Col. von Waldheim (Paul Scolfield), who wants him to deliver the art to Germany AND The Resistance, who want the art protected from the Nazis. Labiche is actually alone in his own beliefs as an American, being tugged by both sides while ultimately struggling with making sense of the conflict over the art.

The movie is well- developed from Lancaster asking Frankenheimer to direct "The Train" after original director Arthur Penn abandoned the project a week after production. I only say that because everything that was directed by Frankenheimer was terrific. The choice of the players, scenery, editing, camera placement and post production yielded a perfect war film that wasn't simply about war. It was about the value of life and what people value in their lives.

Watch for the one scene of a runaway train's derailment -- one of a dozen cameras mounted to film the scene -- came within inches of being wiped out by the locomotive's wheels and the scene has become a classic in filmmaking history. ... Read more

Description

Slapstick prevails when Jacques Tati's eccentric hero Monsieur Hulot is let loose in the ultramodern house of his brother-in-law, and in an antiseptic factory that manufactures plastic hose. Tati directs and stars in the second entry of the Hulot series, a delightful satire of mechanized living. Academy Award winner, Best Foreign Film. ... Read more

Reviews (27)

Tati's Wise and Wonderful Comedy.
In looking at the other reviews of "Mon Oncle", it would seem that people either love or hate this movie. From my 5-star rating, you can see that I am in the former category. I fail to understand how a film can be called boring, when it is so full of life, and witty observations. Rather than feeling that it was too long, I was sorry when it was over.

In "Mon Oncle", the well-meaning, but dim-witted M. Hulot comes face to face with modern living and technology. His brother-in-law is an affluent executive with a plastics company, and owns a state-of-the-art home, full of amazing gadgets. The house is also a tasteless nightmare, devoid of warmth and comfort, with a "garden" to match. You will not soon forget the atrocious fountain, with a huge, metal fish spewing water into the air--but only to impress important guests, of course. In this concrete monstrosity, the couple are also attempting to raise a small boy, who understandably has more fun away from the place, with his uncle Hulot.

Tati is constantly contrasting old-fashioned, small-town life with urban "progress". In addition to the "house from hell", we see the huge, boring factory where Hulot's brother-in-law works, and where he tries, with hilarious lack of success, to land M. Hulot a job. Meanwhile, back at the ranch--er house--we have the outdoor party scene, with a bizarre group of co-workers and neighbours desperately trying to look important and convivial. Of course, Hulot unwittingly undermines the whole celebration, with a little help from that hideous fountain.

There are a number of scenes of children being--well--children--playing tricks on unsuspecting people. Some scene-stealing dogs are also part of the mix.

The DVD is impressive--colours are excellent--the sound naturally is mono. There is a touching introduction by Terry Jones, the well-known director and Monty Python graduate. Also included is an early short film with Tati called "School for Postmen" which is very amusing--a nice bonus.

For those people who consider "Mon Oncle" to be a comedy masterpiece, I agree completely. If you like Tati and his unforgettable creation, M. Hulot, this disc has to be in your collection.

My favorite movie....
I suppose I am out of touch with "the 90s" in that I detest movies where most of the jokes are based on bodily functions. (Flatulence jokes just aren't funny to me.) I love Mon Oncle because it is a physical comedy - in fact, there is extremely little dialog - and yet it is not insulting to the intelligence. Jacques Tati (one of the great comedians) is M. Hulot, an enigmatic, silent man who lives a quiet, calm life. Dismayed and uncomprehending of his sister's "moderne" life, Hulot strikes up a friendship with his nephew. Some of the best scenes are when the boy leaves his sterile, plastic "hygenic" world for the more earthy but enjoyable world that Hulot occupies (it is as if a small piece of Old France is hanging on in the middle of Paris - the old butcher shops, the cobbled streets). The boy's mother cannot understand why her son would prefer "old things" to the new, modern style.

There is a lot of humor in the movie - lots of Keaton-esque sight gags when Hulot tries to deal with the modern appliances in his sister's house - but underneath the humor there is a sweetness and a yearning and a recognition that the new ways aren't always better than the old. This is a movie with humor and heart.

True, it is more slow-paced than recent comedies (which may be what the reviewer who thought it "THE MOST BORING MOVIE" was used to), but if you allow yourself to relax and appreciate the slow pace, it's a beautiful and brilliant movie.

The adjective "Zen-like" is most overused today, or else I would describe watching this movie as a "Zen-like" experience. It got into my mind and changed me. And I am not a fan of movies, there are very few I like enough to watch through once, let alone repeatedly.

a nice sequel to M. Hulot's Holiday
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Mon Oncle or "My Uncle" again follows Msr. Hulot when he visits the then-modern home of his brother-in-law. There he gets into mischief with his nephew. He later inadvertently creates havoc at a rubber hose factory also. The film is second in a series of four movies three of which have been released by the Criterion Collection.

The film has many items featured that I was not aware existed at the time. These incldue an electric garage door at a residential home that has a motion detector to open the door.

The Criterion DVD also contains an introduction to the film by Terry Jones and there is also a short film, "L'école des facteurs" or "Postman School" which is also quite good.

This DVD was out of print for a while but was reissued in February 2004

Charmed
My children(19 and 8) and I borrowed the most recent dvd version of Mon Oncle from our local library. We were charmed. Watching various visitors to the garden navigating the stepping-stones was marvelous.
Gerard waiting to whistle at passersby was hilarious. (My children and I were wishing we could add our coins to the pot.)
What a perfect picture of a boy being a boy.
We loved the dachshund in his bothersome coat leading the other dogs around town.
Tati was certainly a genius of detail.

The reason for just four stars...My children prefer Les Vacances.

Human unrelations satirized perfectly
I watched this film after seeing my wife's all time favorite, Les Vacances Monsieur Hulot. Bumbling slapstick, nearly as silent film, is used to parodize the era of the happy middleclass housewife of the fifties with all her new appliances, her husband with all his gadgets, and to throw sarcasm at efficient production at the expense of human relations. I don't know of a film that does a better job of this. the ending is happy, with the absent gadget-focused father finally discovering the joy of having a playful young son. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Charming Sleeper
This film's been unfairly maligned for years; dumped by its distributor and savaged by critics in its initial release, perhaps it can find an appreciative audience in this spiffy new DVD version. The plot, a slight romance between American indie filmmaker Carradine and Italian producer's wife Vitti at the Cannes film festival, is slight, but very pleasant. There's real chemistry between the pair; Monica, particularly, is touching and very appealing. Some genuine laughs in the Walter Bernstein screenplay, sympathetic direction from Michael Richie, and a glorious score from the always-reliable Georges Delarue add to the film's pleasures. Also enjoyable are the unbilled star cameos, and the running joke about the remake of STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with Vanessa Redgrave and Charles Bronson (if memory serves, such a project was discussed in the 70's; the proposed Stanley was Stallone, even more ludicrous!) The transfer's gorgeous; at bargain price, this one's really worth checking out.

Major talents, major let-down.
It is depressing to see actors and crew who have worked on some of the most important films of the last half-century (stars Keith Carradine and Monica Vitti; composer Georges Delerue; cinematographer Henri Decae) directed by a major American film-maker (Michael Ritchie) in hamfisted slush like this. It strives to be both an Altmanesque lampoon of the film-industry during the Cannes Film Festival, but lacks authenticity, detail, atmosphere, wit or satiric nous; and a Euro-romance, drenched in a soupily romantic score and TV-movie soft-focus visuals. It would be nice to say both impulses pull each other apart, but neither strand has anything to recommend itself beyond disbelief that THESE talents are actually doing THIS. Any Henry James-like tension, ironic or otherwise, in a plot featuring an 'innocent' American abroad in decadent Europe is ruined by Carradine's equine cloddishness and Vitti in Anna Magnani Italian blowsy mode. Independent film-maker Carradine is encouraged to take more interest in people than his art in order to make better movies: this film is totally perfect proof against such bogus platitudes. ... Read more