The Train Robbers (1973)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Burt Kennedy

Writer:

Burt Kennedy (written by)

Release Date:

7 February 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

The gold or the grave. The young widow could lead them to either.

Plot:

A gunhand named Lane is hired by a widow, Mrs. Lowe, to find gold stolen by her husband so that she may return it and start fresh. |

Plot Keywords:

Gold | Train | Beautiful Woman

Cast

John Wayne	...	Lane
Ann-Margret	...	Mrs. Lowe
Rod Taylor	...	Grady
Ben Johnson	...	Jesse
Christopher George	...	Calhoun
Bobby Vinton	...	Ben Young
Jerry Gatlin	...	Sam Turner
Ricardo Montalban	...	The Pinkerton man

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:PG | UK:U | West Germany:12 (f) | Finland:K-12 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Durango, Mexico

Company:

Batjac Productions

Trivia:

John Wayne's and Ann-Margret's character names, "Lane" and "Mrs. Lowe," are the same as Wayne's and Geraldine Page's characters' names in Hondo (1953).

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: As the gang is searching for a sand-covered railroad track in a sand storm they have yet to find anything. Yet behind them, to the right of the picture, as the camera moves to the right slightly, we get a clear view of the camera dolly track, shiny and sand-free.

Quotes:

Sam Turner: All we want to know is what we rode here for.
Lane: What a gun rides anywhere for - money. The more of it the more chances you take.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Wayne Train (1973) (TV)

The end of American westerns

The film western had already been beaten dead for US audiences by the endless stream of television westerns. The vicious surrealism of the spaghetti western had essentially overwhelmed the clichés of Hollywood. What's a film maker to do? Clint Eastwood successfully made post-westerns by following the cynical, mysterious world-weary character he originated in the Leone films. What did everyone else do? Here's an example.

The film starts with a modest imitation of the masterful opening sequence of Leone's "Once upon a Time in the West" while some characters wait for Wayne to arrive on a train. When Wayne finally appears the film switches back into Hollywood style. The dialog is largely by the book and the characters are about as interesting as any you would find in an average TV western. The photography is very good but it can't make up for the fact that at least 20 minutes of the film are long boring scenes of John Wayne and his pals riding around on horses against spectacular vistas. Sometimes they are being followed by a mysterious group of hooligans who pass the same vistas, same camera shot!

The first 20 minutes of the film has no music but when Mr. Frontiere's orchestra kicks in (during those boring horse riding sequences), we are treated to bombastic western cliché music. Frontiere did some really good soundtracks elsewhere but this pales against much of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks.

To the film's credit there are some good sequences and dialog. The scene with a crashed train that's half buried in the desert is neat. And the last scene in the film is funny, almost makes up for the rest of the film. This could have been good but it would have had to be done in the 1950's when the western wasn't so pickled.