The Battle of the Rails

The Battle of the Rails (French: La Bataille du rail) is a 1946 French war film directed by René Clément. It depicts the efforts by railway workers in the French Resistance to sabotage German military transport trains during the Second World War, particularly during the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces.[1] Many of the cast were genuine railway workers.[2] While critics have often historically treated it as similar to Italian neorealism, it is closer to the traditional documentaries which the director had previously worked on.[2]

The Battle of the Rails
Theatrical film poster
FrenchLa Bataille du rail
Directed byRené Clément
Written byRené Clément
Colette Audry
Produced byPierre Lévy-Corti
StarringMarcel Barnault
Jacques Desagneaux
Jean Clarieux
Narrated byCharles Boyer
CinematographyHenri Alekan
Edited byJacques Desagneaux
Music byYves Baudrier
Production
company
Coopérative Générale du Cinéma Français
Distributed byUnion Française de Production Cinématographique
Release date
  • 27 February 1946 (1946-02-27)
Running time
85 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

The film was shown at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Prix international du jury and Clément won the Best Director Award. The film also won the inaugural Prix Méliès. In 1949 the film was distributed in America by Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn.

Plot

René Clément exalts the heroic image of the resistant railway worker and recounts the railway sabotage and other clandestine actions, during the German occupation, of the employees of the railways of the new SNCF2.

Cast
  • Jean Clarieux as Lampin
  • Jean Daurand as railwayman
  • Jacques Desagneaux as Athos
  • François Joux as railwayman
  • Pierre Latour as railwayman
  • Tony Laurent as Camargue
  • Robert Leray as station master
  • Pierre Lozach as railwayman
  • Pierre Mindaist as railwayman
  • Léon Pauléon as station master St-André
  • Fernand Rauzéna as railwayman
  • Redon as mechanic
  • Michel Salina as German

See also

References
  1. Zaretsky, Robert (4 April 2018). "Macron's Been Working on the Railroad". Foreign Policy. René Clément’s classic 1946 film The Battle of the Rails suggests wartime life expectancy of cheminots was even lower – at least among those who sought to sabotage the Nazi war machine in France.
  2. Williams, Alan Larson (1992). Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 303. ASIN B08J7M9KPF. ISBN 0674762681. OCLC 24106528.


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