The First Great Train Robbery

Last updated

The First Great Train Robbery
Great train robbery.jpg
American theatrical release poster by Roger Kastel
Directed by Michael Crichton
Screenplay byMichael Crichton
Based on The Great Train Robbery
1975 novel
by Michael Crichton
Produced by John Foreman
Starring
Cinematography Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by David Bretherton
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Production
company
Starling Films
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • 14 December 1978 (1978-12-14)
Running time
110 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$7 million [1]
Box office$13 million [2]

The First Great Train Robbery (known in the United States as The Great Train Robbery) is a 1978 British heist comedy film directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay based on his 1975 novel The Great Train Robbery . The film stars Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down.

Contents

The story is based on an actual event, the Great Gold Robbery which took place on 15 May 1855 when 3 boxes of gold bullion and coins were stolen from the guard's van of the train service between London Bridge Station and Folkestone while it was being shipped to Paris. [3]

Plot

In 1855 [4] Edward Pierce, a member of London's high society, is secretly a master thief. He plans to steal a monthly shipment of gold from the London to Folkestone train which is meant as payment for British troops fighting in the Crimean War. The gold is guarded in two heavy safes in the baggage car, each of which has two locks, requiring a total of four keys. Pierce recruits pickpocket and screwsman Robert Agar. Pierce's mistress Miriam and his chauffeur Barlow join the plot, and a train guard, Burgess, is bribed into participation. The executives of the bank who arrange the gold transport, the manager Mr. Henry Fowler and the president Mr. Edgar Trent, each possess a key; the other two are locked in a cabinet at the offices of the South Eastern Railway at the London Bridge railway station. To hide the robbers' intentions, wax impressions are to be made of each of the keys.

Pierce ingratiates himself with Trent by feigning a shared interest in ratting. He also begins courting Trent's daughter, Elizabeth, and learns from her the location of her father's key. Pierce and Agar break into Trent's home at night, locate the key and make a wax impression before making a getaway.

Pierce targets Fowler through his weakness for prostitutes. Miriam reluctantly poses as "Madame Lucienne", a courtesan in an exclusive bordello, meets with Fowler and asks him to undress, forcing him to remove the key worn round his neck. While Fowler is distracted by Miriam, Agar makes an impression of his key. Pierce then stages a phony police raid to rescue Miriam, forcing Fowler to flee to avoid a scandal.

The keys at the train station prove a much harder challenge. After a daytime diversionary tactic with a child pickpocket fails because Agar cannot wax them in the time available, Pierce decides to "crack the crib" at night. The operation is a matter of timing, because the officer guarding the railway office at night leaves his post only once, for seventy-five seconds, to go to the toilet. Pierce plans to use "snakesman" (cat burglar) Clean Willy to climb the station's wall, climb down into the station, enter the office via a skylight in the ceiling, and open the key cabinet from within. Because Clean Willy is incarcerated at Newgate Prison, Pierce and Agar first have to arrange for him to break out, using a public execution as a distraction. With Willy's help, the criminals succeed in making impressions of the keys without detection.

Clean Willy is subsequently arrested after being caught pick-pocketing and informs on Pierce. The police use Willy to lure Pierce into a trap, but the master cracksman eludes capture. Clean Willy escapes from his captors, but is murdered by Barlow on Pierce's orders. The authorities, now aware that a robbery is imminent, increase security by having the baggage car padlocked from the outside until the train arrives at its destination and forbidding anyone but the guard to travel in the baggage van. Any container large enough to hold a man must be opened and inspected before it is loaded on the train.

Pierce smuggles Agar into the baggage car disguised as a corpse in a coffin. Pierce plans to reach the car across the coach roofs while the train is under way, but he and Miriam encounter Fowler, who is riding the train to Folkestone to accompany the shipment. After arranging for Miriam to travel in the same compartment as Fowler to divert his attention, Pierce travels down the roof of the train and unlocks the baggage van's door from the outside. He and Agar replace the gold with lead bars and toss the bags of gold off the train at a prearranged point. However, soot from the engine's smoke has stained Pierce's skin and clothes, and he is forced to borrow Agar's suit, which is much too small for him. The jacket splits across the back when he disembarks at Folkestone. The police become suspicious and arrest him before he can rejoin his accomplices.

Pierce is put on trial for the robbery. While exiting the courthouse, he receives the adulation of the crowds, who consider him a folk hero for his daring act. In the commotion, a disguised Miriam kisses him, slipping a key to his handcuffs from her mouth to his. Agar is also present, disguised as a police van driver. Before he can be put into the wagon, Pierce frees himself and escapes with Agar, to the jubilation of the crowd and the chagrin of the police.

Cast

Production

Film rights to the novel were bought in 1975 by Dino de Laurentiis. [5] In 1977 it was announced the film would be made in Ireland by American International Pictures with Sean Connery and Jacqueline Bisset. [6]

Crichton deliberately varied the film from his book. He said "the book was straight, factual but the movie is going to be close to farce." [1]

Sean Connery originally turned down the film after reading the script, judging it "too heavy." He was asked to reconsider and read the original novel. After meeting Crichton, Connery changed his mind. [7]

Sean Connery performed most of his own stunts in the film, including the extended sequence on top of the moving train. [8] The train was composed of J-15 class 0-6-0 No 184 of 1880, with its wheels and side rods covered and roof removed, leaving only spectacle plate for protection to give it a look more akin to the 1850s, and coaches that were made for the film from modern railway flat wagons. Connery was told that the train would travel at only 20 miles per hour during his time on top of the cars. However, the train crew used an inaccurate means of judging the train's speed. The train was actually doing speeds of 40 to 50 miles per hour. Connery wore soft rubber soled shoes and the roofs of the carriages were covered with a sandy, gritty surface. Connery actually slipped and nearly fell off the train during one jump between two carriages, and had difficulty keeping his eyes free of smoke and cinders from the locomotive. [9]

Heuston Station in Dublin stood in for 'London Bridge Station' in the film. [10] During the filming at the station, a diesel locomotive leaked a large quantity of fuel onto the tracks by the platform. When the production company's steam engine rolled onto the same tracks, embers dropping from the underside of the locomotive ignited the fuel soaked track, momentarily producing a very large fire within the station. [11]

Origins of the plot

The film's plot is loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, in which a cracksman named William Pierce engineered the theft of a trainload of gold being shipped to the British Army during the Crimean War. [1] The gold shipment of £12,000 (equal to £1,416,472 today) in gold coin and ingots from the London-to-Folkestone passenger train was stolen by Pierce and his accomplices, a clerk in the railway offices named Tester, and a skilled screwsman named Agar. The robbery was a year in the planning and involved making sets of duplicate keys from wax impressions for the locks on the safes, and bribing the train's guard, a man called Burgess. [12] : 210  Crichton, the author of the book and the screenplay, was inspired by Kellow Chesney's 1970 book The Victorian Underworld, which is a comprehensive examination of the more sordid aspects of Victorian society.

In his screenplay Crichton based his character "Clean Willy" Williams on another real-life character from Chesney's book, a housebreaker named Williams (or Whitehead) who, sentenced to death in Newgate Prison, escaped from prison by climbing the 15-metre (50-ft.) tall sheer granite walls, squeezing through the revolving iron spikes at the top, and climbing over the inward projecting sharp spikes above them before making his escape over the roofs. [12] : 187  The only completely fictional character in the film is Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down).

The film also draws loose parallels to the 1903 film of the same name. The 1903 film has just 18 shots, but the film borrows two scenes, one in which Pierce (the 1903 characters are unnamed) is on top of the train, and another when a person is thrown off the moving train.

Filming locations

Although set in London and Kent, most of the filming took place in Ireland. In particular, the final scenes were filmed in Trinity College, Dublin [13] and Kent railway station in Cork. Heuston Station in Dublin stood in for London Bridge railway station. The scenes on the moving train were filmed on the Mullingar to Athlone railway line (now closed) at Castletown Geoghegan Station. The train driver was John Byrne from Mullingar, now deceased. Moate railway station is the location for Ashford station.

The two locomotives featured were both J-15 0-6-0s, No 184 of 1880, and No 186 of 1879. [14] [15]

Music

The film's soundtrack was written by Oscar-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith. The score was his third collaboration with writer/director Michael Crichton following Pursuit (1972) and Coma (1978). The music for two pianos played by the characters Elizabeth (Gabrielle Lloyd) and Emily Trent (Pamela Salem) is from the third movement of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448 Molto Allegro.

Reception

The Great Train Robbery has a critical rating of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 30 reviews. [16] The site's critics praised the film's comedic tone, action sequences, and Victorian details. Variety wrote that "Crichton's film drags in dialog bouts, but triumphs when action takes over." [17] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and singled out Connery, writing that the actor "is one of the best light comedians in the movies, and has been ever since those long-ago days when he was James Bond." [18] Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised director Crichton's "amplitude...in this visually dazzling period piece," [19] and that "the climactic heist of the gold, with Mr. Connery climbing atop the moving railroad cars, ducking under bridges just before a possible decapitation, is marvelous action footage that manages to be very funny as it takes your breath away." [19] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it "takes too much time to get to the robbery itself." He found very little suspense in the first half of the movie "because we know that Connery's gang must get the keys or we won't be able to see the big robbery of the film's title." [20] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "an intelligent and handsome work. It is just a little slow, dull and bloodless—pure Victorian, when a dash or two of Elizabethan vivacity couldn't have hurt." [21] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that "While the movie boasts an undeniably exciting highlight, it lacks an undercurrent of excitement ... It's beginning to look as if Crichton's filmmaking carburetor is tuned a bit low. Perhaps his approach is too dry and cautious to produce an explosive, uninhibited mixture of thrills and humor." [22]

Accolades

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Crichton</span> American author and filmmaker (1942–2008)

Dr. John Michael Crichton was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavily feature technology and are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres. Crichton's novels often explore human technological advancement and attempted dominance over nature, both with frequently catastrophic results; many of his works are cautionary tales, especially regarding themes of biotechnology. Several of his stories center specifically around themes of genetic modification, hybridization, paleontology and/or zoology. Many feature medical or scientific underpinnings, reflective of his own medical training and scientific background.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Connery</span> Scottish actor (1930–2020)

Sir Thomas Sean Connery was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. Connery originated the role in Dr. No (1962) and continued starring as Bond in the Eon Productions films From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Connery made his final appearance in the franchise in Never Say Never Again (1983), a non-Eon-produced Bond film.

The Great Train Robbery may refer to:

<i>The Lavender Hill Mob</i> 1951 film by Charles Crichton

The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 British comedy film from Ealing Studios, written by T. E. B. Clarke, directed by Charles Crichton, starring Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway and featuring Sid James and Alfie Bass. The title refers to Lavender Hill, a street in Battersea, a district in London SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Train robbery</span> Type of robbery involving the theft of money/valuables being carried aboard trains

Since the invention of locomotives in the early 19th century, trains have often been the target of robbery, in which the goal is to steal money or other valuables. Train robbery was especially common during the 19th century and is commonly associated with gangs of outlaws in the American Old West. It has continued into the 21st century, with criminals usually targeting freight trains carrying commercial cargo, or targeting passengers of public transportation for their valuables.

<i>Congo</i> (novel) 1980 novel by Michael Crichton

Congo is a 1980 science fiction novel by Michael Crichton, the fifth under his own name and the fifteenth overall. The novel centers on an expedition searching for diamonds and investigating the mysterious deaths of a previous expedition in the dense tropical rainforest of the Congo. Crichton calls Congo a lost world novel in the tradition founded by Henry Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, featuring the mines of that work's title.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Butterworth</span> English actor and comedian (1915–1979)

Peter William Shorrocks Butterworth was a British actor and comedian best known for his appearances in the Carry On film series. He was also a regular on children's television and radio. Butterworth was married to actress and impressionist Janet Brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Salem</span> British actress (1944–2024)

Pamela Fortunee Salem was a British film and television actress. She was born in Bombay, India, and educated at Wispers School and Heidelberg University in Germany, and later at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Gold Robbery</span> 1855 British train heist

The Great Gold Robbery took place on the night of 15 May 1855, when a routine shipment of three boxes of gold bullion and coins was stolen from the guard's van of the service between London Bridge station and Folkestone while it was being shipped to Paris. The robbers comprised four men, two of whom—William Tester and James Burgess—were employees of the South Eastern Railway (SER), the company that ran the rail service. They were joined by the planners of the crime: Edward Agar, a career criminal, and William Pierce, a former employee of the SER who had been dismissed for being a gambler.

<i>The Great Train Robbery</i> (novel) Novel by Michael Crichton

The Great Train Robbery is a best-selling 1975 historical novel written by Michael Crichton, his third novel under his own name and his thirteenth novel overall. Originally published in the US by Alfred A. Knopf, it was later published by Avon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The novel tells the story of the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, a massive gold heist that takes place on a train travelling through Victorian-era England on 22 May 1855. Most of the book takes place in London. A 1978 film adaptation was written and directed by Crichton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotten Row</span> Road and bridleway in Hyde Park, London

Rotten Row is a broad track running 1,384 metres (4,541 ft) along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen horse riding. Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used as such.

<i>The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery</i> 1959 American film

The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery is a 1959 American heist film directed by Charles Guggenheim and starring Steve McQueen as a college dropout hired to be the getaway driver in a bank robbery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Eastern Main Line</span> Major long-distance railway line in south-east England

The South Eastern Main Line is a major long-distance railway route in South East England, UK, one of the three main routes crossing the county of Kent, going via Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Ashford and Folkestone to Dover. The other routes are the Chatham Main Line which runs along the north Kent coast to Ramsgate or Dover via Chatham and High Speed 1 which runs through the centre of Kent to the coast at Folkestone where it joins the Channel Tunnel.

<i>The Man Who Would Be King</i> (film) 1975 film by John Huston

The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 adventure film adapted from Rudyard Kipling's 1888 novella. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey and Christopher Plummer as Kipling. The film follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who set off from late 19th century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king.

<i>Another Time, Another Place</i> (1958 film) 1958 British film by Lewis Allen

Another Time, Another Place is a 1958 British melodrama film directed by Lewis Allen and starring Lana Turner, Barry Sullivan and Sean Connery. It was written by Stanley Mann based on Lenore J. Coffee's 1955 novel Weep No More.

<i>The Offence</i> 1973 British film by Sidney Lumet

The Offence is a 1973 British crime neo noir drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Sean Connery, Ian Bannen, Trevor Howard and Vivien Merchant. The screenplay was by John Hopkins based on his 1968 stage play This Story of Yours.

<i>Travels</i> (book) 1988 nonfiction book by Michael Crichton

Travels is a 1988 nonfiction book by Michael Crichton that details how he abandoned his medical education at Harvard Medical School, moved to Los Angeles, and began his professional writing career with The Great Train Robbery (1975). After this book became a movie starring Sean Connery, Crichton undertook a variety of international adventures and experimented with mysticism, including out-of-body experiences, astral projection, and fortune-telling. It is his fourth, final, and most famous non-fiction book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moate railway station</span> Former station in County Westmeath, Ireland

Moate railway station is a former railway station which served the town of Moate in County Westmeath, Ireland. Previously a stop on the Midland Great Western Railway's main line to Galway and later on the main route between Dublin and stations in County Mayo, the station was closed in 1987. As of 2015, the line and station at Moate form part of the Athlone to Mullingar Cycleway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portrayal of James Bond in film</span> Fictional character

James Bond is a fictional character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1952. The character first appeared in a series of twelve novels and two short story collections written by Fleming and a number of continuation novels and spin-off works after Fleming's death in 1964. Bond's literary portrayal differs in some ways from his treatment in the James Bond films, of which there have been twenty-seven in total, produced and released between 1962 and 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Owen, Michael (28 January 1979). "Director Michael Crichton Films a Favorite Novelist". New York Times. p. D17.
  2. ↑ The Great Train Robbery at Box Office Mojo
  3. ↑ The Great Gold Robbery Wikipage
  4. ↑ Ebert, Roger. "THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY". rogerebert.com/. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  5. ↑ Thomas, Bob (21 September 1975). "Movies: Director Dino hits the shores of America". Chicago Tribune. p. e16.
  6. ↑ Fitzsimons, Godfrey (10 June 1977). "Hollywood company to make $5m. film here". The Irish Times. p. 13.
  7. ↑ Sterritt, David (3 April 1979). "Sean Connery: Ex-Milkman with a Famous Face". Christian Science Monitor. p. B24. ProQuest   512201486.
  8. ↑ Mann, Roderick (19 December 1978). "The Diagnoses of Dr. Crichton". Los Angeles Times. p. f16.
  9. ↑ Bray, Christopher (2011). Sean Connery: A Biography. New York: Pegasus. ISBN   978-1-4532-1770-2.
  10. ↑ McCormack, Stan (13 August 2020). "When the movies came to town". Westmeath Examiner . Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  11. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079240/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv. Retrieved 14 March 2017. [ user-generated source ]
  12. 1 2 Chesney, Kellow (1970). The Victorian Underworld. London: Maurice Temple Smith Ltd. ISBN   0-85117-002-1.
  13. ↑ David Ingoldsby. "The Great Train Robbery (1978)". Shot at Trinity. Trinity College Dublin. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  14. ↑ 31interactive.co.uk. "No. 184". www.steamtrainsireland.com.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ 31interactive.co.uk. "No. 186". www.steamtrainsireland.com.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ↑ "The Great Train Robbery (1979)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  17. ↑ "Review: 'The First Great Train Robbery'". Variety. 31 December 1978.
  18. ↑ Ebert, Roger (9 February 1979). "The Great Train Robbery". Chicago Sun-Times.
  19. 1 2 Canby, Vincent (2 February 1979). "The First Great Train Robbery (1979)". New York Times.
  20. ↑ Siskel, Gene (12 February 1979). "'Train Robbery' action languishes in preliminaries". Chicago Tribune . Section 3, p. 2.
  21. ↑ Champlin, Charles (2 February 1979). "A Stickup in Slo Mo". Los Angeles Times . Part IV, p. 1.
  22. ↑ Arnold, Gary (9 February 1979). "The Great Train Robbery". The Washington Post . C12.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.