1979’s The Great Train Robbery (or The First Great Train Robbery, so as not to confuse it with the 1903 film) brings together three things that I love: heists, mid-19th Century facial hair, and Sean Connery. How can you go wrong?
Edward Pierce (Connery) makes plans to steal a shipment of gold from a London train, enlisting his good friend and cracksman Robert Agar (Donald Sutherland, with the most spectacular set of whiskers EVER) for help. Together they must obtain four keys to open the safes in which the gold has been stored, avoid being found out by the cops, and then actually succeed in breaking into a moving train and heisting a lot of gold.
The Great Train Robbery is a masterpiece of criminal ingenuity. As one thing after another changes, or goes wrong, our heroes must improvise – and the audience has to keep on their toes just to keep up. Nor is the theft itself the whole point of the film – most of it is taken up with just trying to get ahold of the requisite keys. One tense and all but silent sequence has our boys trying to obtain a wax impression of a key as the seconds tick by and we watch the authorities get closer and closer. There is also a requisite run across the top of a moving train, a sequence in a Victorian brothel, and several daring escapes, just to get your action jollies in.
It’s a dashing, laddish little caper movie about charming Victorian criminals. There’s nothing not to like about it.
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