The First Great Train Robbery [The Great Train Robbery] *** (1978, Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Lesley-Anne Down) – Classic Movie Review 9,502

All aboard the London to Folkestone express for Michael Crichton’s 1979 Victorian crime caper, with Sean Connery as the cracksman William Pierce and Donald Sutherland as the safe-cracker Agar.

‘Steal from a moving train? Whoever heard of such a thing!’

All aboard the London to Folkestone express for writer-director Michael Crichton’s 1979 Victorian crime caper, The First Great Train Robbery [The Great Train Robbery], based on the real-life first robbery from a moving passenger train in 1885, in which a cracksman named William Pierce and his accomplices stole a trainload of gold worth £12,000 being shipped to the British Army during the Crimean War.

At the centre of things, there is a rare trio of rogues played by Sean Connery as the heavily disguised thief Pierce, Donald Sutherland as the safe-cracker Agar, and Lesley-Anne Down as Connery’s lover Miriam, who are all out to nab £25,000 in gold.

Thanks to the enthusiastic acting and pretty photography (by Geoffrey Unsworth in his last movie) on evocative locations, it is really entertaining and likeable, though not exactly the historical French Connection that Crichton intended.

The First Great Train Robbery [The Great Train Robbery] is on the right lines definitely, but it never gets up quite enough head of steam, apart from in the extended finale sequence on top of the moving train. The fit and athletic Connery performed most of his own stunts, including the spectacular train-top top finale.

Crichton wrote the screenplay, based on his novel The Great Train Robbery, but changed the film’s script from his book. He said: ‘The book was straight, factual but the movie is going to be close to farce.’ This obviously appealed to Connery who read the script and turned down the film as ‘too heavy’, but changed his mind after reading the novel and meeting Crichton.

The only completely fictional character in the film is Miriam.

Dancer Wayne Sleep plays a thieving character called Clean Willie! He is based on a housebreaker named Williams (or Whitehead), sentenced to death in Newgate Prison, from where he spectacularly escaped by climbing the 15-metre granite walls, squeezing through the revolving iron spikes at the top, and climbing over the inward projecting spikes.

Also in the cast are Alan Webb, Robert Lang, Malcolm Terris, Wayne Sleep, Michael Elphick, Pamela Salem, Gabrielle Lloyd, James Cossins, Peter Benson, Janine Duvitsky, Clive Swift, John Bett, André Morrell, Brian Glover, Donald Hewlett, Peter Butterworth and Patrick Barr.

It is mostly shot in Ireland, though set in London and Kent. Heuston Station in Dublin stands in for London Bridge station.  The final scenes are filmed in Trinity College, Dublin, and Kent railway station in Cork. The scenes on the moving train were filmed on the now closed Mullingar to Athlone railway line.

The score is by Jerry Goldsmith, his third for Crichton, following Pursuit (1972) and Coma (1978).

The top 20 British heist movies

R I P Donald Sutherland (17 July 1935 – 20 June 2024), who died in Miami after a long illness on 20 June 2024, aged 88. His brilliant film career spanned seven decades. He won a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards but never received an Academy Award nomination. For ever Hawkeye in MASH (1970).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,502

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