The Train Robbers
by Burt Kennedy
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DVD details
Actor: Ann-Margret, Ben Johnson, Christopher George, John Wayne, Rod TaylorDirector: Burt Kennedy
Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Cinematographer: William H. Clothier
Writer: Burt Kennedy
Editor: Frank Santillo
Producer: Michael Wayne
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-22
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- A feisty, beautiful widow bands together with three cowboy buddies to recover a cache of gold stolen by her husband and her attempt to clear his son's name. It's wide-open fun and dynamite excitement as The Duke meets his match in lovely Oscar-nominee and Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Ann-Margret ("Grumpy Old Men").Running Time: 92 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN Rating: PG
DVD Reviews of The Train Robbers
DVD Review: A Nice Enjoyable Wayne Western
Summary: 4 Stars
There are many ways to cheer yourself up when one is down in the dumps. I have found that one of the things I like to do is put on a good John Wayne western. To those of us who idolized the Duke, his western films and his real-life patriotism and love of country, made many of us feel better about America. It is perhaps the reason why this man is still idolized despite being deceased over 30 years. And considering the events currently taking place in our country with the current people we have in power, boy do we need him now.
"The Train Robbers" is not Waynes best western, it is no "Searchers," no "Hondo," no "Rio Bravo" or "El Dorado" and no "Shootist." It is simply an enjoyable western with some good action, beautiful scenery and a great supporting cast. Co-starring with the Duke is Ann-Margret as the woman who hires Wayne and his group of cohorts to recover some gold stolen by her deceased husband. One forgets how absolutely beautiful Ann-Margret was until one sees her in her prime. (I had the pleasure of briefly meeting her recently and mentioned to her that she co-starred with 2 of my favorites: Wayne in "The Train Robbers" and Elvis in "Viva Las Vegas." She seemed pleased and said "Bless their hearts.") Also co-starring is the great Rod Taylor, an actor I greatly admired from 2 of the favorite films of my childhood: Hitchcock's "The Birds" and George Pal's "The Time Machine." (See Taylor currently in "Inglourious Basterds." Apparently Tarentino idolized him as well.) The film also co-stars the terrific Ben Johnson, a man seemingly incapable of giving a bad performance. Ricardo Montalban is also good as a mysterious stranger following the group.
For a Warner Bros. DVD, this disc shockingly has a couple special features: a nice little featurette featuring the stuntmen who worked on this film reminiscing about working with Wayne on this film, a vintage featurette on the production of this film and trailers of other Wayne films on Warner Bros. DVDs. The picture and sound quality of this disc are very good.
As stated, if you want to sit back and relax with an enjoyable Wayne western, this is for you. It is no "Rio Bravo," (my favorite Wayne western,) but then again, what is?
DVD Review: Not the Duke's Best, but still entertaining
Summary: 4 Stars
I had not really heard of the Train Robbers, but added it to my Netflix cue since I enjoy most John Wayne westerns. This film came late in the Duke's career, and is not a classic, but definitely entertaining. The plot is pretty simple to follow, the action moves along at a nice pace, and the surprise ending is actually pretty funny. Overall, it contains a lot of the right ingredients for a solid Western movie. Several other reviewers have covered the details, so I will not here. Just two quick thoughts:
First, Ann Margaret does a nice job in her role. Completely believable as the widow, she matches up well with the Duke in his role. Second, there is actually some good humor in this movie. I watched it with my boys and they loved the line "something to do".
If you enjoy John Wayne Westerns, then you will enjoy this movie. Some parts of it are a little goofy, but solid entertainment. If you are looking for a classic Wayne film, then start elsewhere.
DVD Review: A successful, if predictable, "Wayne Western."
Summary: 3 Stars
Mrs. Lowe (Ann Margret) is the widow who enlists the help of Lane (John Wayne) in finding a gold shipment that had been stolen five years ago...
In that time ten men rode away with half a million in gold... The fellow that was running the show figured they better hide it until things cooled off... So he took the Fargo box and rode south into Mexico... He had the misfortune of getting shot... But before he died, he told his wife--the mother of his little boy-- where the gold was...
But his widow decided to get the gold, return it to the train company for a $50,000 reward, and clear her husband's name... The reason: she doesn't want her kid growing up thinking his old man ran around robbing trains...
In mid way, and as 'gold has a way of bringing out the larceny in all of us,' Wayne, with his old-times pals and two young helpers, find themselves followed by mysterious riders who also want the buried loot...
"The Train Robbers" features plenty of gorgeous vistas, from rocky scrub to a sea of rippling sand dunes... Also Wayne delivers one of his most memorable lines addressing Margret, 'I've got a saddle that's older than you are, Mrs. Lowe.'
DVD Review: better then average
Summary: 4 Stars
This was one of the Dukes better movies. Add Ann Margerat to the mix and his usually shoot all the bad guys add some friction within his ranks and some famous lines by the Duke and u have a movie for your Duke collectionDVD Review: It's Something to Do!
Summary: 3 Stars
John Wayne and voluptuous Ann-Margret co-star in writer & director Burt Kennedy's "The Train Robbers," a traditional but rambunctious western shoot'em up about a notorious outlaw's widow who hires the Duke to recover a half-a-million in stolen gold from her husband's last robbery five years old. She wants the money returned to Wells Fargo so she clear her husband's name as well as keep her young son from growing up thinking that his father went around robbing trains. Wayne summons his trusty old saddle pals Rod Taylor, Ben Johnson and Bobby Vinton to accompany him on this perilous journey. Taylor brings along a couple of young gunmen, Christopher George and Jerry Gatlin, to find the buried treasure. No sooner has Wayne, Ann-Margret, and company saddled up and crossed the border into Mexico to find the fortune in gold than a train load of gunslingers show up and pursue them. Meanwhile, lurking on the fringes of the action is a mysterious but elegantly-attired, cigar-smoking hombre who never loses sight of them. He turns out to be a pretty fair shot with a Winchester rifle.
Our heroes meet at an isolated railway station in Liberty, Texas, rather like the one in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." The small town appears empty. The wind gusts across the boardwalk at the hotel and sways the rocking chairs back and forth. A metal sign buckles in the breeze. Jesse (Ben Johnson of "Rio Grande") awaits the arrival of Lane (John Wayne) on a train that was due in the day before, and everybody is astonished when Mrs. Lowe (Ann-Margret of "Viva Las Vegas") gets off the train with Lane. Jesse and Grady (Rod Taylor of "Dark of the Sun") remember Lane as "bull-headed" and they discover to their relief that he hasn't changed an iota. Later, we learn that Jesse and Grady served together under Lane in the Union Army during the American Civil War where they endured their baptism under fire at Vicksburg. Life for these three has been going up one hill of adversity after another. Feisty Calhoun stands up to Lane, and Lane wallops Grady. Grady thinks that Lane ought to be happy that Calhoun stood up to him. Conversely, Lane wants men who will stand alongside him not against him. Calhoun demands to know what they are getting themselves into, and Lane observes that they are doing what any hired gun does . . . risking their lives. Earlier, before Lane and Mrs. Lowe got off the train, Grady told Jesse that he has shown up for the job simply because it amounted to "something to do."
After initial misgivings about endangering a woman on a long ride through the desert, Lane and company head out. Before they leave the station, Lane has Mrs. Lowe's shirt boiled so that she will stand out and her late husband's pallbearers won't mistake her as a man and try to shoot her. An army of gunmen--we never see these guys up close--shadow our heroes across the parched terrain to the accompaniment of "Rat Patrol" composer Dominic Frontiere's giddy-up score that signals the change of locale when everybody plunges across the Rio Grande into old Mexico. Along the way, during several campfire scenes we learn more about our heroes. Eventually, the feuding between Calhoun and Lane ends and they become friends. Finally, our heroes find the railroad train in the middle of the Mexican desert. They dig into the boiler and find the gold, but they aren't about to go anywhere because that ubiquitous army of gunmen that has been trailing them arrives. As our heroes fortify themselves for the ensuing gun battle, Jesse and Grady swap memorable but pithy dialogue. "Don't get old," Grady warns Jesse, "you'll live to regret it." The twenty gunmen attack them, but our heroes emerge unscathed largely because--in Lane's words--"they could shoot worth a damn."
Our heroes head back across the border, but the remaining gunmen beat them back to Liberty and prepare a reception for them. Everything ends with a bang-up shoot-out at the railway station where Lane met Jesse and Calhoun. Our heroes virtually blow the town to bits with dynamite so they can defeat the villains. During this fracas, Mrs. Lowe pulls a fast one on our heroes in what constitutes an O'Henry reversal. The well-dressed stranger (Ricardo Montalban of "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan") turns out to be a Pinkerton detective who has been on Mrs. Lowe for five years. He explains that she was never married and that Lowe died with a bullet in the back in the bordello where Mrs. Lowe worked. She reveals that Mrs. Lowe's name is Lily. Our heroes scramble after the departing train that carries the pseudo Mrs. Lowe and the gold.
Burt Kennedy got his start writing laconic but entertaining oaters for director Budd Boetticher in the 1950s. Wayne's film production company Batjac produced many of Boetticher's existential westerns so it is no surprise that Kennedy went on to pen westerns for Wayne. The first collaboration between Wayne and Kennedy was the superlative "The War Wagon." Mind you, "The Train Robbers" isn't half as exhilarating as "The War Wagon," but this nifty little sagebrusher never runs out of steam and the dialogue is fun to hear. Rod Taylor is nothing short of brilliant as Wayne and Johnson's friend. Okay, all the characters are pretty much stereotypical and of them gets so much as a scratch. Wayne plays his usual stalwart hero and leathery Ben Johnson is his wise sidekick. Naturally, Ann-Margret is a feast for the eyes. The scene where Wayne tries to get her drunk so she will reveal the whereabouts of the gold is amusing. Later, when she comes onto Wayne, he deflects her amorous advances with the line, "M'am, I've got a saddle older than you."
Although it is painfully predictable from fade-in to fade-out, "The Train Robbers" is a rip-snorting adventure that benefits immeasurably from veteran Wayne lenser William H. Clothier's gorgeous widescreen photography. Veteran stunt & wrangler Cliff Lyons orchestrates the hard-riding horsemen scenes. Special photographic effects veteran Albert Whitlock does some nice things with his hand-painted visuals. Check out the long shot where our heroes appear to be riding near a river with a waterfall. No, "The Train Robbers" is not "The Searchers" or "El Dorado," but John Wayne fans will enjoy this familiar but engaging western.
Description of The Train Robbers
A feisty, beautiful widow bands together with three cowboy buddies to recover a cache of gold stolen by her husband and her attempt to clear his son's name. It's wide-open fun and dynamite excitement as The Duke meets his match in lovely Oscar-nominee and Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Ann-Margret ("Grumpy Old Men").General DVDs
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