Art, Literature and Popular Culture Inspired By Le Train Bleu
In 1924, "le train bleu" inspired a ballet of the same name, created by Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, with a story by Jean Cocteau, costumes by Coco Chanel and a curtain painted by Pablo Picasso.
The train was featured in the novel The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie, and the novel Mon Ami Maigret (1949) by Georges Simenon.
The Blue Train Races were a series of record-breaking attempts between automobiles and trains in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It saw a number of motorists and their own or sponsored automobiles race against "le train bleu". The Blue Train Bentleys, two Bentley Speed Six automobiles owned by "Bentley Boy" Woolf Barnato, were involved in the Blue Train Races.
In 1963, the belle-epoque restaurant at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris was renamed Le Train Bleu to honor the historic train.
A French television series, Le train bleu s'arrete 13 fois (lit. "The Blue Train Stops 13 times"), appeared on the French channel ORTF between October 8, 1965 and March 11, 1966. It featured one mystery episode for each of the thirteen stops of the Train Bleu between Paris and Menton, based on short stories by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.
Philip Marlowe comes around after being knocked unconscious to see a poster advertising "See the French Riviera by The Blue Train" in Raymond Chandler's novel "The Lady in the Lake" (1943).
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