The Train (1964 film)

The Train is a 1964 war film directed by John Frankenheimer from a story and screenplay by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis, based on the nonfiction book Le front de lart by Rose Valland, who documented the works of art placed in storage that had been looted by the Germans from museums and private art collections. It stars Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, and Jeanne Moreau.

In 1944, art masterpieces stolen by the Wehrmacht from French museums are being shipped to Germany the officer in charge of the operation, Colonel Franz von Waldheim Paul Scofield, is an ardent art lover and is determined to take the art to Germany, no matter the cost. After the Germans remove the art chosen by Waldheim from the Jeu de Paume Museum, curator Mademoiselle Villard Suzanne Flon seeks help from the French Resistance. Given the imminent liberation of Paris by the Allies, they need only delay the train for a few daysstill, it is a dangerous operation and it must be done in such a way that does not risk damaging the priceless cargo.Although Resistance cell leader and SNCF area inspector Paul Labiche Burt Lancaster initially rejects the plan, telling Mlle. Villard and senior Resistance leader Spinet Paul Bonifas, I wont waste lives on paintings, he has a change of heart after a cantankerous elderly engineer, Papa Boule Michel Simon, is executed for trying to sabotage the train on his own. After that sacrifice, Labiche joins his Resistance teammates Didont Albert Rmy and Pesquet Charles Millot, who have been organizing their own plan to stop the train with the help of other SNCF Resistance members, in the effort to stop the theft. The Resistance devises an elaborate ruse to reroute the train, temporarily relabeling railway stations to make it appear to the German escort as if they are heading to Germany when they have actually turned back toward Paris. They then arrange a double collision in the small town of RiveReine that will block the train without risking the cargo. Labiche, although shot in the leg, escapes on foot with the help of the widowed owner of a RiveReine hotel, Christine Jeanne Moreau, while other Resistance members involved in the collision plot are executed. ........

Source: Wikipedia