War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to key films of World War II in Europe.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And of course, as always, I'm once again joined by Sean McIver.

In our last battle episode that came out a few days ago, we talked about resistance movements, and one of the ones we talked about was the French resistance.

And now we're going to talk about a classic movie about the French resistance, or at least part of it. This is a 1964 film called The Train, and it stars Burke Lancaster. The length is

two hours and 13 minutes. On Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of the critics gave it a positive rating,

and 89% of the fans did. So very, very good. IMDB is 7.8, so you're almost eight, which is you're getting in rarefied air there.

The director was John Frankenheimer and movie stars, as I mentioned, Burd Lancaster, also Paul Schofield, Jean Moreau, Suzanne Flon, Michael Simon, and Wolfgang Peace, who we've mentioned already several times.

The picture screenplay, which was written by Franklin Cohen, Frank Davis, and Walter Bernstein.

It is loosely based on the non-piction book Le Front Delotte by Rose Valland.

And awards.

It was nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay, written directly for the screen

at the Academy Awards.

It was nominated for a handful of other awards at other awards ceremonies.

I don't believe it won any of those.

It definitely didn't win the Oscars that it was nominated for.

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