History Film / TheTrain

* InsistentTerminology: Ammunition for both Bonn Waldheim and Papa Boule: they don't refer to the train as "the" train; it's "''[[ItsAllAboutMe my]]'' train".

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The train is eventually derailed without damaging the art, but countless people have been killed in the quest to secure it, both Resistance Fighters and innocent civilians who were first used as hostages to stop Labiche at the climax and then killed senselessly at the end when the train is stopped. And on top of all this, TheHero Labiche may not even respect the historical and national value the art represents.]] John Frankenheimer believed it was more of a DownerEnding. The final shots, juxtaposing [[spoiler:the crates full of paintings with the bodies of the murdered hostage]], make it easy to agree with him: it wasn't worth it.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Burt Lancaster sounds as New York as ever as the French Labiche, reportedly because he was "tone deaf" when it came to accents. Averted with Paul Scofield, who makes a respectable stab at a German accent.

* DwindlingParty: The reason why Labiche was originally reluctant to do the art train job was because over the course of five years of occupation, his resistance cell had gone from eighteen men to three, and with liberation apparently only days away, he didn't want to risk any more. [[spoiler:After the mission is over, the cell is down to one man - Labiche is the SoleSurvivor.]]

** The specific whistle sequences used when passing through the train yard to signal the switch tower were quite true to life.

* TheCaper: The original plan to save the paintings was a ''Series/MissionImpossible'' plot two years before the series existed. Labische's cell gets in contact with rail station controllers across half the Paris-Berlin Line to disguise their stations as stations on the other half of the line, tricking the guards on board into thinking that they're travelling to Germany when they've actually turned around and are going back to Paris, at which point Labische pins the train between two wrecked engines one station away from the point where they started from, leaving it trapped in one place until the Allies arrive to retake Paris, at which point they can secure the train. The only reason why it didn't work was because the Allies decided that a Free French unit had to be first into Paris for political reasons, causing the liberation to be a few days later than expected.

* DwindlingParty: [[spoiler:With Labiche as the SoleSurvivor.]]

* NaziGold: The plot revolves around preventing the art from from becoming this rather than finding it.

* RailCarSeparation: Resistance members uncouple the cars on a train full of stolen artwork while they are in motion and stage a series of crashes to prevent the Germans from simply replacing the locomotive and keep the cars stuck in one location.

* SpySpeak: "Tell Jacques the cheese is on the train, and save a piece for Pierre and Raoul."

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Burt Lancaster sprained a knee playing golf, so a scene in which Labiche takes a bullet in the leg was thrown in to cover for his limp. And Papa Boule was executed early(instead of at the final confrontation) because Michel Simon's prior contract obligations prevented him from completing the film.