Train in Vain

I wanted to watch The Great Train Robbery (1978) to see Donald Sutherland in outrageous side-whiskers (Sean Connery too, although his facial hair is a bit more restrained). Then I saw that it was written and directed by Michael Crichton, I knew I was in for a treat.

Sean Connery is a Victorian gentleman thief. Along with his paramour, Leslie-Anne Down, he convinces pickpocket Donald Sutherland to join him in an attempt to rob the train carrying the payroll for the Crimean War. To do this, they'll need 11 men... No, that's a different movie. But it will take a crazy process to get through the security precautions in place.

First, no one has ever robbed a moving train before (do Butch Cassidy and Sundance count?). Second, four keys are required to open the safe: two in the bank, two held by two bankers - one hidden and the other around his neck. Getting these keys is the middle part of the movie.

They get close to one banker through his love of the Victorian sport of ratting. Here is where the Crichton kicks in. He has obviously done a ton of research into ratting (basically, terriers fight rats in a pit, with bets on how many it can kill in a certain time), and he puts a neat condensed version on screen. As a science kid, I love the way he researches the odd and obscure, and lets you in on the results. I realize that not everyone appreciates this style...

Any way, they need a good second story man, so they break break Clean Willy out of Newgate. The clever plan they use seems to be just him climbing up a wall and getting his hands hacked up on the spiked fence. To get another key, they use the old badger game, where they let the guy get naked with Down, then burst in dressed as cops. For another, they need to break into a heavily guarded train dispatcher's office. And so on.

Once they get on the train, everything goes wrong, but our anti-heroes improvise. Connery does a tense run over the train top, doing his own stunts as the train flies through the countryside and under very low bridges - it looks kind of clunky compared to the super stunts of today, but it was really dangerous. And so on, until success - or failure.

As a movie, I'm not sure this is very good. But as an artifact, a representation of a barrel of historical research, it's great. Costumes, facial hair, period thieve's argot (my favorite!), sports and trains. Also, Donald Sutherland is always great, here with a very wobbly accent, seemingly an Irishman who spent a lot of time in America and is trying to sound Londoner. Him and Connery have a nice rapport, as do Connery and Down.

In conclusion, not related to the OTHER great train robbery of the 1960s.