Build a movie plot around this: What is Colonel Franz von Waldheim determined to take to Germany? to take the paintings
Nazi Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) and museum curator Mlle.Villard (Suzanne Flon) are admiring Impressionist and Modernist paintings in the Jeu de Paume, in Paris. She thanks him for protecting the art, but he announces that many of them are now going to be taken to Germany.Col. von Waldheim goes to the headquarters of General von Lubitz (Richard Munch), which is bustling with staff packing or destroying records and organizing the withdrawal from Paris. Von Lubitz considers the cargo "degenerate art," but Col. von Waldheim succeeds in getting authorization for a train to transport the art by pointing out that the paintings are "as negotiable as gold, and more valuable."Railway Superintendent Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster) meets in a river barge with Spinet (Paul Bonifas) to receive the latest instructions from London for the railwaymen working for the Resistance. His last two remaining compatriots are also there: Didont (Albert Remy) and Pesquet (Charles Millot). Spinet tells them they are asked to delay departure of an armament train by ten minutes so that it will be caught in the saturation bombing of the yard at Vaires at 10:00 o'clock.Then he introduces another request. Mlle Villard wants the art train stopped. Labiche refuses to "waste lives" on such a project. Mlle Villard shocks even herself when she blurts out: "But they wouldn't be wasted." Didont is sorry they can't help her. He asks hopefully: "Don't you have copies of them?"Short of locomotive engineers, Labiche reluctantly decides to assign his aged mentor Papa Boule (Michel Simon) to drive the train taking the art to Germany. In a cafe, Boule is disappointed not to be given something "important." When told what his cargo is, the art doesn't mean much to him, but he remembers fondly a girl he knew who was a model for Renoir. He muses about "the glory of France," and asks for his change in franc pieces.The art train is waiting for darkness before departing, when Gen. von Lubitz calls Col. von Waldheim to rescind authorization. Von...