Hell Train

Based on a true story which sadly may happen again today.

There were harsh words said of this plea against racism at the time of issue ,and I can see little fault with the opinions expressed ,including that of the precedent user;it proves,one more time,that good intentions do not walk hand in hand with good results.

Roger Hanin stepped into two of his predecessors' shoes:André Cayatte and Yves Boisset ,whose "Dupont-Lajoie" he probably had in mind .But these two directors,often unfairly despised by the "true" connoisseurs of the French cinema ,the likes of the N.V. clique,had ,by and large,firm and strong screenplays and they knew how to direct their actors (remember Jean Carmet and Jean-Pierre Marielle in "Dupont -Lajoie".) In Hanin' s flick ,they are left to their own devices,and even good thespians such as Robin Renucci and the late Christine Pascal are bad.

The dialog is abysmal ,every line you hear is a cliché ;so heavy-handed ,as the precedent user aptly wrote ,it's sometimes involuntarily comic.

One can save ,at a pinch ,the last sequence ,told in the third conditional ,which shows some emotion .

NB:not to be confused with Gilles Grangier's eponymous movie (1965).