The First Great Train Robbery

The First Great Train Robbery (1978)

Never have so few taken so much from so many.

In Victorian England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.

Date of release
1978-12-14
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (458)
Runtime
1h 50m
Genres
Thriller, Adventure, Drama, Crime
Director
Michael Crichton

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $13M
  • Budget: $6M
  • Earned 2.2× its budget
  • Based on: The Great Train Robbery
  • Filmed in: Pinewood Studios

The First Great Train Robbery is a 1978 British heist comedy film directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay, and based on Crichton's 1975 novel The Great Train Robbery. The film stars Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down.

Production

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

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."

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.

Sean Connery performed most of his own stunts in the film, including the extended sequence on top of the moving train. 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.

Heuston Station in Dublin stood in for London Bridge Station in the film. 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 large fire within the station.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended