Plot

England, 1850s. A master criminal aims to rob a train of a large sum of gold. Security is incredibly tight and the task seems an impossible one. However, he has a plan and just the right people to carry it out.

Sutherland and Connery wish to rob a moving train's safe in Victorian England. They need wax impressions of keys, coffins, dead cats, and a great deal of planning in order to pull it off.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

In 1855, Edward Pierce (Sir Sean Connery) plans to do something that has never been done, rob a moving train. His target is the monthly shipment of gold destined to the Crimea for British soldiers who are there fighting the Russians. The twenty-five thousand pounds sterling in gold is stored in two locked Chubb safes that requires four separate keys to be opened. One key is held by the President of the bank; the second by its senior manager; and the two remaining keys by the station master. Along with his accomplices, Agar (Donald Sutherland) and Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), he sets about acquiring each of them. Once in hand, they must now find a way to break into the luggage compartment where the safes are located, off-load the gold, and then go about their merry way without being caught. It doesn't quite go as planned, but a good thief always have a back-up plan.—garykmcd

1855. Edward Pierce (Sir Sean Connery), a member of London high society, is really a criminal mastermind. He is determined to steal the twenty-five thousand pounds sterling of gold shipped once a month via train by the handling bank, Huddleston and Bradford, from London to Folkestone on the coast, where it is shipped to Crimea as payment to the English troops, who, along with their French counterparts, are waging war there against Russia. There has never been a successful robbery on a moving train, which is considered folly by the authorities. Because of the nature of the safe in the luggage compartment of the train where the gold is kept, Pierce believes the easiest way into the safe is to obtain copies of the four keys required to open the safe, the four which are individually entrusted to three key people, who cannot know that copies have been made. Two are kept locked in the offices of the railway despatcher; one is kept in an unknown location by Huddleston and Bradford President, Edgar Trent (Alan Webb); and one is kept at all times around the neck of the bank branch Manager, Henry Fowler (Malcolm Terris), an acquaintance of Pierce's. Pierce needs the assistance of several people to pull off the heist, he enlisting: his beautiful mistress, Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), who hopes the gold will mean a future for the two of them together; Robert Agar (Donald Sutherland), a screwsman; Barlow (George Downing), his chauffeur; "Clean Willy" (Wayne Sleep), a young cat burglar; and Burgess (Michael Elphick), the railway's security guard in the luggage compartment, who he will need to bribe to cooperate. Getting copies of the four keys is no easy task in and of itself, let alone getting the gold off the train undetected if they are able to get that far. They may have to turn to Plan Bs or Cs if they find the situation changes, and/or improvise on the spot if something doesn't work. But the large number of disparate individuals involved in the heist and the complexity of the plan may make the operation collapse under its own weight.—Huggo

In 1855, Edward Pierce plays the business gentleman to get access in a London club to Victorian high society marks for his smart thefts. The fiend sets his mind on the regular trainload of gold from London to Folkestone to be shipped to the British troops in the Crimean war, having overheard the banker boast it's perfectly safe, with four keys for the unbreakable safe aboard divided among bank and rail gentleman, and nobody ever robbed a moving train. Pierce recruits a team including pickpocket Agar, his own brothel 'mistress' Miriam, and even cat burglar 'Clean Willy', who specially escapes from prison and has to be put down after the police lean on him. They painstakingly make unnoticed copies of all keys, but on the day find extra safety measures require improvisation, which renders it far more dangerous.—KGF Vissers