A film review by Roger Ebert on February 9, 1979 (edited by the blogger).
England
has had its share of great train robberies, including the one immortalized in
Stanley Baker's Robbery. But there
was, we learn, only one Great Train
Robbery, and that was the first one, in 1855. Until one Edward Pierce made
off with a shipment of gold being sent to meet the British army's payroll in
the Crimean War (England and France vs. Russia), it was, quite simply, thought
impossible to rob a moving train.
Pierce
got clean away with some £4,000 of gold bullion
(approximately $410,000 in 2017 US dollars) The haul is a great deal larger in Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery, but he based his original novel more or
less on the facts. In the process of writing and directing the movie, however,
Crichton has taken more liberties with the facts, and he's inserted a vein of
wry humor. That's just as well, since (a) we don't desperately need another
tightly wound caper film, and (b) his cast was born to play wry humor.
The
leads are Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, teamed up with Lesley-Anne Down (fondly recalled as
Georgina on Upstairs, Downstairs).
Connery is one of the best light comedians in the movies, and has been ever
since those long-ago days when he was James Bond. The Bond movies, with their
violent pyrotechnics and bizarre special effects are somehow remembered as
thrillers. Not really so. They were stylish, droll comedies that were flavored
with thrills, and Connery played Bond as an understated comic character. Maybe
that's why George Lazenby and Roger Moore never quite filled Connery's shoes as
Bond; they played 007 too straight.
Sutherland,
playing a Victorian pickpocket and key duplicator (using wax impressions), is
Connery's perfect partner for The Great
Train Robbery. He brings a new mannerism or two to almost every movie he
makes, and this time there's a low whistle, a popping of the fingers, as they
engineer their way into the safe with the army payroll. Down plays Connery's
accomplice and lover, and she seems to have been born to wear Victorian
knickers.
The
plan for the robbery is pretty straightforward: The train's safe, containing
the gold, is locked with four keys. The keys are in different hands. The
challenge is to separate the owners from their keys, preferably in
circumstances that properly staid Victorian gentlemen would be loath to
describe to the police. So one elderly banker is stalked at a dog vs. rat fight
and another is compromised in a brothel.
There's
also a stopwatch scene for the caper fans: Connery and Sutherland go through several
dry runs before attempting to break into the office of the railway company,
where two of the keys are stored, and we get a nicely choreographed robbery
attempt with all the classic touches (guard appears in view a split-second
after the crucial moment, etc.).
One
of the pleasures of The Great Train
Robbery is the way it's firmly in the Victorian period. The costumes and
the art direction are right, Crichton peppers his dialog with, no doubt,
authentic Victorian underworld phraseology, and, for the climactic train
robbery scene, the production company even built an entire working train. Other
pleasures include the wicked trick used to smuggle Sutherland into the locked
car with the gold, Connery’s scene on top of the train, and, of course, the
exquisite presence of Down, who has a bedroom scene with Connery that makes
James Bond look curiously like Sherlock Holmes [Ebert’s rating: *** out of 4
stars]
Labels:
adventure, crime, drama, period, thriller
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