Nazi Week: The Train

Achtung!  Heh now that I have your attention kids, welcome to Day 2 of Ratzi Week er um I mean Nazi.   Today we will read up on the cinematic amazement that was director John Frankenheimer (The Young Savages, All Fall Down, Birdman of Alcatraz, The Machurian Candidate, The Horsemen and Black Sunday) and keeping up with our Nazi theme; let us suggest a heist has occurred and we need no Transporter of Jason Statham’s nature, we let Burt Lancaster smack some goose steppers about.  So have your papers and passport and make sure your luggage fits in the overhead compartment.  This is The Train.

Hey Fritz, why the long face? Ooo burn.

Spoiler sind unglaublich!!!

As the Allied Forces proceed into Paris liberating the German occupation, Colonel Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield of That Lady, Henry IV, A Man for All Seasons, Tell Me Lies, King Lear, Summer Lightning, When the Whales Came and The Crucible) feels the need to take his ill gotten gains of priceless impressionistic artwork back to Germany during all this chaos arranges a train to transport it.  He forcefully hires (that’s at gunpoint and death threats by the by) Labiche (Burt Lancaster of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Devil’s Disciple, Elmer Gantry, Judgment at Nuremberg, Birdman of Alacatraz, From Here to Eternity and Airport) a jack of all trades handyman train engineer to make sure the train is secure and runs smoothly.  Unbeknownst to the Colonel, Labiche has connections with the French Resistance and a meager collection of them are planning to overrun the train, stop the jackboots and claim back their heritage that is this artwork.  Sounds easy don’t it?  Well it ain’t.  

Are you drinking my 50 year old scotch??!!!

Papa Boule (Michel Simon of Boudu Saved from Drowning, L’Atalante, Port of Shadows and The Two of Us), an elderly engineer tries to through his own literal monkey wrench into the works is promptly executed on the spot.  Time efficient this ratzis are.   After Boule’s pointless death Labiche reluctantly joins in the effort to take down the train.  A simple matter of rerouting the train to confuse Waldheim to thinking he is in route to Germany when in fact he is heading back to Paris but the plan goes pear shaped and the resistance cell is wiped out leaving Labiche shot in the leg but all the more determined to see Waldheim not get away. 

Now I have just a few comments about this film if you don’t mind.  Firstly, my copy is in glorious black and white which sends this critic’s heart strings all whimsy.   This film could be construed as a dramatic action film due to the impressive lot of gun and fist fights but what really give the film weight is the supporting story, in where Labiche argues against wasting lives on a few crates of paintings he has never seen in his lifetime and gradually it comes around that understands that the Nazis will get away with carving the heart and soul out of France if allowed to flee with these treasures.  In the same mindset imagine Da Vinci’s works stolen and no one was held accountable stabbing Italy in the back.   Oh a little FYI, Lancaster being the complete loopy he was did all his own stunts.  Bet the insurance people had lots of Pepto and paper bags to breathe in.  35 mm of course but in Spherical lens rather than anamorphic so again your characters are well zoomed in on but background gets a bit fuzzy.   This technical process was before Europe developed Eastman spherical in the later 60's.  

Burt! Come back! The movie is pretty good!

Honestly in my humble opinion the villain role for Scofield is where the juicy lines, the heart and soul of the movie is as he spirals into madness and obsession over the paintings you can actually watch him lose what little marbles this man had left after the occupation.  Solid writing, superb casting and phenomenal stunt work although there are some that felt it was a direct insult to the French Railroad battering that many trains.  Cannot say I fault them there.   This is a gem long forgotten and clearly needs dusting off and reappraisal.

Western Week: Navajo Joe

Get some!!!

Howdy buckaroos and welcome to the first day of Western Week.  Now having not tackled this particular field of film outside of my own entertainment this should be an interesting week.  So let’s start the week off good and proper.  With a bloody massacre, women and children butchered and a man seeking revenge to the point of utter madness.  Doesn’t that sound keen?   So saddle up your mustang, grab a Spencer rifle and aim good.  This is Navajo Joe.

Spoilers is sneaky as them injuns!!

Our film is fast paced, very little lag between scenes and frankly one of the better revenge storylines I have seen in a while.   The film opens up with a young Native American woman at the edge of a stream just washing some clothes against the rocks when a man on horseback trots up to the other side of the stream.  They share glances, albeit the girl’s a bit more shyly and then our charmer Duncan (Aldo Sambrell of The Sea Pirate, The Texican, A Bullet for the General, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Hellbenders and Tex and the Lord of the Deep) draws his revolver and drops her dead.  I know, right?   This starts up this amazing score that seems to be timed when the screams of violence and gunfire kicks in. Enno Morricone (Composer of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, Red Sonja, The Untouchables, Causalities of War and Inglorious Basterds) has been the primary composer for any Dino de Laurentiis production as well as almost every Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America and My Name is Nobody) film and this score covers the various moods of the film but captures the overtone of revenge seething in Joe’s soul.  Also from a film goers’ point of view this was a complete waste of actress Nicoletta Machiavelli (The Hills Run Red, Matchless, Face to Face, Temptation, Anyone Can Play and Garter Colt) this gorgeous girl who can run lines well, give good emotion and presence with almost any male counterpart…again wasted within a matter of minutes. 

Gorgeous mountain range or Matte painting? You decide.

As the men ride off with their scalps they get that prickly feeling like they are being watched. Up in the far mountain range some 800 yards away is Joe (Burt Reynolds of Deliverance, Shamus, White Lightning, The Longest Yard, Gator, Hooper, City Heat and Boogie Nights) stalking them slowly.  Vigilant but not impatient, he waits for them to get comfortable and then will strike.    Duncan gets antsy and sends two of his boys to take him out, only to hear loads of repeater gunfire and see two horses sent back with his men slumped on their former saddles.  Duncan rides his boys back to town rouse the place and shoot up a far amount of folks in it.  Just so we are clear, these are bad hombres and I am behind Joe 100% in their deaths of which by far are quick.

An interesting film goof in my opinion, the train heist works by dumping logs on the track and yet the land they are driving the train through I didn’t see one fricking tree at all.  Sparse of trees I would think boulders rolled over the tracks would have been more feasible but hey I am not directing the flick.  My only point there is work with what you have and not what you just trucked in from a nearby town.   If you thought Reynolds got wailed on in Gunsmoke, holy hell they done threw him a whoopin’ in this.   Rest assured Act 3 has yet to happen.   

Shatner Hairpiece for Men: You're gonna love the fit.

The film of course is pretty dreary in its theme and I have seen a bit better examples of it but all in all it is a revenge story with western backdrop and I feel they did their level best.  Reynolds however feels it was a turd overall.  He describes the film as so awful it can only be shown in airplanes and prison that way the audience cannot leave. 

Sorry Burt I have to disagree.  Not too shabby.  Although those buck skins had to be getting hot running around in I wager.