The Grey Fox **** (1982, Richard Farnsworth, Jackie Burroughs, Ken Pogue) – Classic Movie Review 6376

A commanding performance by Richard Farnsworth, the former ace stuntman turned distinguished star character actor, adds fire and feeling to director Philip Borsos’s 1982 Canadian film account of real-life Old West highwayman Bill Miner, who switches from robbing stagecoaches to robbing trains in 1901, after 33 years in San Quentin.

Finally freed from jail, he goes to live and work with his sister’s family in Washington, but he cannot adjust to the Twentieth Century, so he goes to Canada and starts life as a train robber.

Maybe we should not be celebrating the life of The Gentleman Bandit, who originated the phrase ‘hands up’, but this moving and winning Canadian Western persuades us otherwise.

Farnsworth proves a roguish old charmer, the movie is lovingly written by John Hunter, and cinematographer Frank Tidy effectively captures the turn-of-the-20th century atmosphere in a series of dazzling images.

Also in the cast are Jackie Burroughs, Ken Pogue, Wayne Robson, Timothy Webber, David Petersen, Gary Reineke, Don MacKay, Samantha Langevin, Tom Heaton, Ray Michal and Stephan E Miller.

Richard Farnsworth (1920–2000).

The London Film Critics voted Farnsworth Actor of the Year for The Grey Fox.

Double Oscar-nominee Richard Farnsworth (1920–2000) is the oldest nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor at 79 years and 167 days for The Straight Story (1999). He was also an Oscar-nominee as Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Comes a Horseman (1978).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6376

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