The Battle of the Rails

The Battle of the Rails
Directed by	René Clément
Produced by	Pierre Lévy-Corti
Written by	René Clément ; Colette Audry
Starring	Marcel Barnault; Jacques Desagneaux ; Jean Clarieux
Music by	Yves Baudrier
Cinematography	Henri Alekan
Edited by	Jacques Desagneaux
Production; company	Coopérative Générale du Cinéma Français
Distributed by	Union Française de Production Cinématographique
Release date	27 February 1946
Running time	85 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

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.[3]

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.

Cast

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.
Williams p.303
Williams p.303

Williams, Alan. Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Harvard University Press, 1992.

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