THE TRAIN ROBBERS

PRODUCED BY MICHAEL WAYNE
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY BURT KENNEDY
MUSIC BY DOMINAC FRONTIERE
BATJAC PRODUCTION
WARNER BROS

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/630445728601LZZZZZZZ.jpg..http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/robbers.jpg

INFORMATION FROM IMDb

Plot Summary
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.

Full 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

Writing Credits
Burt Kennedy

Produced
Michael Wayne

Original Music
Dominic Frontiere

Cinematography
William H. Clothier

Stunts
Cliff Lyons .... stunt coordinator
Denny Arnold .... stunts (uncredited)
Jim Burk .... stunts (uncredited)
Louie Elias .... stunts (uncredited)
Glory Fioramonti .... stunts (uncredited)
Chuck Hayward .... stunts (uncredited)
Terry Leonard .... stunts (uncredited)
Chuck Roberson .... stunts (uncredited)
'Chema' Hernandez .... head wrangler (uncredited)

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.

* Factual errors: During the era depicted, the price of gold in US dollars was fixed at $20.67 per troy ounce. $500,000 worth of gold would therefore weigh about 750 kg or 1,660 pounds avoirdupois - far too much for one man to shift or for one mule to carry, as depicted in different scenes.

* Anachronisms: During the shootout at the abandoned railroad crash site, when John Wayne is talking to Ann Margret, tire tracks can be clearly seen in the sand.

* Revealing mistakes: In the opening scene of the movie when they show you the town from a distance on a windy day, dust is only blowing from behind the buildings, and not on the roads and open areas, indicating hidden wind machines.

Memorable Quotes (http://http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070825/quotes)

Filming Location
Durango, Mexico

Watch the Trailer:-

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Hi,
Not a bad film, but not a great film.
Probably one of Duke's weakest, late films.
They at least had got the point and moved him on
from having young, love interests.
Ann-Margaret, was really just window dressing,
but Chuck Hayward and Duke sorted out her fear of horses.
but Ben, and Rod Taylor acquitted themselves well.
However I thought the film, anything but mediocre.
Rating 6/10

Click on the links below, for previous discussion,
The Train Robbers (http://www.dukewayne.com/showthread.php?t=324)

The Train Robbers- Lost Footage (http://www.dukewayne.com/showthread.php?t=343)

Memorable Quotes

Calhoun: Someone said this gold was already dug.
Lane: Keep digging.

[First scene -- Lane has summoned his gun-toting friends to a rendezvous]
Grady: Alright, what's it all about, Jess?
Jesse: Beats me. All Lane said was meet him here at the train stop. It'd be worth it.
Calhoun: To him or us?
Grady: Oh, what difference does it make? It's something to do, isn't it?

[last lines]
Grady: Where you goin'?
Lane: Where the hell do you suppose? To rob a train!
Jesse: Rob a train?
Grady: It's something to do!

The Pinkerton man: Her name is Lilly, with two "L's." Matt Lowe was never married. Better luck next time!
Jesse: Lilly.
Grady: With two "L's."
Jesse: One of 'um must stand for "liar."

INORMATION IMDb

Its what Pilar would have called a Batjac family movie. It is not a classic but not bad. Worth an occasional viewing as with Cahill Hondo and Mc Lintock are part of a set that dont seem to get the same exposure as others.


Mike

Hi Mike,
Why family movie? Because it is Batjac prodaction? I'm not quite understand.
regards,
Senta

Hi Senta

Pilar Wayne's description of a lot of the westerns made by John Wayne in the 1960s and 70s was as Family movies. This was because many of the cast /technical crew/ support staff had acted in previous JW films. They also tended to be shot in and around Durango. To a lesser extent the storylines in some of the movies were repeated. Pilar would have beeen aware of this as she was on location with children for some of these shoots.

Also, because Batjac company was a small company they tend to recruit tried and test staff who they knew could perform and were within their costings.

On screening JW movies at his home cinema a game played by Wayne family was to identify how many familar faces/names they could see in films and credits.


Mike

Hi Mike,
Thank you for the comment. I like Train Robbers. For a pity I have it on VHS, that was released here, but the copy is not bad. The bad thing is that in russian translation.
Regards,
Senta

Hi

Rod Taylor must have made quite an impression on Duke because shortly before John Wayne's death Taylor spent a lot of time talking with him.

Regards

Arthur

I would agree, not one of the better of the Duke's movies, but worthy of being in a collection of JW movies.

Deep Discount DVD (http://search.deepdiscountdvd.com/search?p=Q&ts=custom&w=train+robbers&search.x=0&search.y=0) offers the movie individually as well as paired with Tall in the Saddle as a "double feature" in additon to being part of the boxed set John Wayne Legendary Heroes Collection. It seems there are no posters that go with this film.

Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=br_ss_hs/103-2966141-4147854?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Ddvd%26dispatch%3Dsearch%26results-process%3Dbin&field-keywords=train+robbers&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go) offers it the same three ways as Deep Discount, for a little more $$$.

Chester :newyear:

Hi all,
Being in Finland I purchased it on DVD for the 2 zone. I think that the contents are the same as in the part of Legendary heroes collection that I haven't. I like all features and the widescreen DVD, it is very good quality.
Regards,
Senta

An enjoyable film (again, not a great film). One of my favorite parts of the film is when Rod Taylor and Ben Johnson are waiting for the bad guys to make their move, and start talking about old times. The scene goes on for an extended time, and when it's over, I found myself wishing it could have gone on even longer. I also enjoyed the scene where Christopher George's horse gets stuck under a tree. After he pleads to his friends to try and save it (and once they do), he has a new-found respect for Duke. One the minus side, it would have been nice to know a little something about the bad guys who were following them for the length of the movie. Basically, they were just a faceless mob, who was really just there to get shot down by Wayne and company.

Still, I find myself enjoying this one more and more, on repeated viewings. My rating...7/10

The Train Robbers (Burt Kennedy, 1973) is mildly entertaining and lightly enjoyable, and I certainly prefer it to Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar, 1975). However, it's also slight and simplistic, and it needed a richer writer-director than Burt Kennedy to bring out greater depths and darkness, the kind of intricacy and tension that could have made the film something more than disposable entertainment. I didn't feel that Kennedy set up the bizarre, comically ambiguous "twist' ending with appropriate development, either. On the brighter side, Wayne's performance is quite sharp and fluid, really marking an alert groove. I love the silent rage the he suddenly displays at the end of Ann-Margaret's drunken diatribe.

I thought this was a rather enjoyable film, not the greatest thing ever made, but a good way to spend an hour and a half.

My favourite line was when the Duke tells Ann-Margret that he has saddles older than her. If that isn't a great, truthful line, then I don't know what is.

Originally posted by dc65@Sep 14 2006, 09:45 AM
My favourite line was when the Duke tells Ann-Margret* that he has saddles older than her. If that isn't a great, truthful line, then I don't know what is.
34467


Yeah, at least is displays some refreshing honesty about Hollywood's age conventions.

This is one of John Waynes most forgotten movies, upon doing a search relating to this film I was surprised to realise how highly it is regarded by many who have watched it. Below is an interesting review by Roger Egbert which he did in 1973, his observation relating to the colour used in the movie is very interesting.

Burt Kennedy's "The Train Robbers" is a very curious Western, and it gets curiouser the more you think about it. I wonder if there's ever been a Western as visually uncluttered as this one. Most of the action takes place in the high desert around Durango, Mexico, and Kennedy goes for clean blue skies, sculpted white sand dunes and human figures arranged against the landscape in compositions so tasteful we're reminded of samurai dramas.
Aw, come on, you're probably thinking by now: What's all this crap about visual compositions? It's a John Wayne Western, isn't it? Is it any good, or not? Well, yes, it's fairly good, In a quiet and workmanlike sort of way, although there's a plot twist at the end that ruins things unnecessarily. But what's best about it, what makes it worth seeing, is Kennedy's visual approach to the subject of John Wayne. Wayne by now is an artifact, a national heirloom, one of the few immutable presences created by the movies. He is perhaps the only Western actor alive (maybe the only one ever) who can get away with scenes like this one: His group has been riding through the desert all day, pursued by a mysterious band of gunmen. They pull up at a small hacienda. Will they spend the night there? No, because Wayne hears a baby crying. There is likely to be shooting later on, and Wayne asks Ben Johnson: "Did you ever bury a baby? Well, neither did I, and I'm not about to start now. Ride on." They ride on into the night. Now this is honorable dialog; we agree with him; we're glad Wayne doesn't want to endanger the baby. And because it is John Wayne playing this scene, we never pause to realize that such a scene, and such dialog, would be ridiculously impossible in any other context. The audience would be howling if Steve McQueen or Paul Newman - or Robert Mitchum - tried the dialog.
Only Wayne can make plausible the morality in his Westerns. In the new Westerns, the ones by Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and their imitators, the West is a place of anarchy, sadism and routine bloodshed. It almost has to be. Apart from Wayne, there are no actors left who can get away with being decent Western heroes. Am I making this up? Think for a moment.
So. The Wayne character in "The Train Robbers" agrees to help a widow (Ann-Margret) recover some gold her husband had stolen some years before. She wants to return the gold to the railroad it was stolen from, to clear her husband's name and allow her young son to grow up proud. This seems like a sensible plan to Wayne, and he raises a band of friends (Ben Johnson, Rod Taylor, and two younger guns) to help the widow. Their payment will be the $50,000 reward money - although at the movie's end, they forgo even this.
There is a lot of action in the movie - blazing gun battles and stuff like that - but the movie's core is in the campfire scenes, when the characters talk about each other and their beliefs. The Wayne character, not to our surprise, turns out to be heroic in war and noble in peacetime, a subscriber to old moral codes. And it is here that Burt Kennedy's visual strategy comes in.
His material (he also wrote the movie) is, in the context of a Western being released in 1973, a little old-fashioned. The moral drives of Western heroes were fashionable in the 1950s, especially in the movies where John Ford directed Wayne. But no longer. In 1973, any plot exposition at all in a Western seems to drag.
So Kennedy wisely decided to eliminate absolutely every trace of visual clutter, and to shoot his movie with almost abstract clarity. The "town" at the beginning of the movie, for example, consists of two stark structures, a railroad track and a mountain on the horizon. There is not even a railroad crossing sign. Once out of town, the characters inhabit a landscape of horizons and clean natural lines. Kennedy goes for silhouettes and, as I've mentioned, for the kind of carefully casual arrangements of figures we find in samurai films - the Japanese Western.
The result is a movie that isolates the John Wayne mystique and surrounds it with the necessary simplicity and directness. It's too bad that the scale of the plot is a little too small for the scale of the characters, and too bad that Kennedy got in an ironic mood at the end. But he understands John Wayne, all right.

:agent:

A rare photo!

1478

Hi Keith

I hate to keep doing this but the picture you have attached relates to 'Chisum' and not 'The Train Robbers'.

I hope you don't think I am trying to undermine you as that is certainly not my aim.

:agent:

Not at all Robbie,
I relly don't know what's going on!

Not at all Robbie,
I really don't know what's going on!

I like the fact the bad guys are unknown through out...left us in the same boat as the Duke...the bad guys were just coming..that's all you knew. GSP

I wish I could remember seeing these posters hanging in the theater, but I wasn't as much of a John Wayne fan then as I am now -

Chester :newyear:

I'm impressed with the standard of artwork, in those days,
considering there were few if no computers!

Keith,

Thank you. This is one that Les Adams, from Abilene, Texas shared with us.

Chester :newyear:

I enjoy this film though while nowhere near his best, it ranks high up there with his most entertaining. I watched this last night and one scene in particular caught my attention and held a lot of meaning for me, the one where he's talking to Ben...

(Paraphrased obviously)
Ben: I Hope I don't let you down

Wayne: You planning to rob another bank?

Ben: I was thinking I oughta take my horse and get out of here

Wayne: Why didn't you?

Ben: because you'd come after me.

Wayne: Wrong. Ben I hate to break it to ya, but you're a man now and you'll find yourself standing your ground when you oughta runaway, you'll open your mouth when it should be kept closed and you'll find yourself doing what you think is right when others say you're wrong.

and for how it actually played out
Wayne: "I hate to Tell you this, but whether you like it or not... you're a man and you're stuck with it. You'll find yourself standing your ground, and fighting when you oughta run... speaking out when you oughta keep your mouth shut... doing things that will seem wrong to a lot of people.. but you'll do them all the same."

So close >_<

Anyway I have that sound clip should some one want it.

Hello all,

I was wondering if you guys could help me out. I'm looking for a quote from the movie The Train Robbers.
It is the scene where Ben Johnson and Ann Margart are speaking about the Duke's character, and they are discussing his friendship with the Duke. They talk about walking up a lot of hills with him...

Can someone post the conversation or let me know if there is a place I can check it online???

I will see what I can do.

25 minutes into the movie Ben Johnson(Jessie) and Ann-Margret(Ms Lowe) are sitting around the fire talking about how they all met during he Civil War and there was a situation where 100 men where ordered up a hill at Vicksburg and how only 3 made it to the top, Duke(Lane), Rod Taylor(Grady) and Jessie and then how they have been going up hills with each other ever since. Also just a bit later on you find out the Lane was married but his wife died a year later and they all went up the "hill" with Lane as well.

I'll get it off the film if you can give me a few minutes.
--------------------------------------------------

Here's a link to the conversation: Train Robbers (http://www.dakotasurfer.com/Duke/Train_Robbers.mp3)

Thank you Dakota for filling in, I couldn't find the the time today.

Thanks to all you guys.. I appreciate it!

Thank you Dakota for filling in, I couldn't find the the time today.

For filling in? It took all of 10 min.

Yeah but I had only a few minutes to spare... it was chaos here. Minute I sat down another problem or job popped up.

I like this film, although as others have said it certainly isn't one of Duke's best. I think they should have cut some of the scenes where they were just riding their horses with nothing being said. Ben Johnson was great as always.

7/10.

Here's an example of the book of the movie. This copy has seen better days, but being a Duke movie novelization....it was well read. Enjoy!

Mark

http://www.dukewayne.com/imagehosting/2147fa270dcdae7.jpg

It's one of the Movies I liked as Child (also because of Ann-Marget) but nowadays I only can wonder. It's nice to see Ben Johnson and Rod Taylor as Duke's Buddies. Never cared who the other two were. Ann-Marget looks fantastic (clean and washed without any dirt) the whole movie and I don't know how this is possible with all the dust and the desert scenes. The role of Ricardo Montalban is more like a cameo. The shootout in the desert is one of the worst I've ever seen. Not to forget the silly scene with the mule. Interesting for me I always can remember the twist at the end. It's makes the movie more fun but in a way Duke and his friends are looking like a bunch of old losers who were stupid enough to help a beautiful young woman who betrayed them.

I agree with one of the posts above that Duke's line about the baby is one of the best of the movie. The photography of the landscapes are great no doubt about it but I expected to see more remarkable Scenes with Duke. A mediocre Movie and one of them I wished John Wayne hadn't done.:wink:

Here is a Fun John Wayne Film To Watch With a Great Cast, and was Prodused by The Duke's Oldest Son Mike Wayne !
"THE TRAIN ROBBERS"
:ph34r:
And has some Great Close-Ups of Duke and the other Actors !!
:wink_smile:
By The Time this Film is Over They Kill Every One But The Camera Man !!!
:fear2:
Chilibill
:cowboy:

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6s-mGIEDzO0

Time to Mount Up and Ride Hell Bent For Up The Trail for The Gold !!!
:fear2:
Chilibill
(bud)

czU28KDXEWA

9XMwEZYzev4

Time for a Drink and then More
"The Train Robbers"
:vampire:
Chilibill
:cowboy:


B7lssZmrdAE

The next Film Clip starts out with a Big Sand Storm, all made with Many Wind Machines !
Then The Bad Guys Show Up !!
:vampire:
Chilibill
:cowboy:


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Waiting for the Bad Guys to get to the Old Train and The Gold !!!
:vampire:
Chilibill
:cowboy:

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Now on the run with the Gold from the Bad Guys in the Film
"The Train Robbers"
And Duke told The Girl "I Have A Saddle Older Than You Are" !!!
(bud)
Chilibill
:cowboy:

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Here are the last two Film Clips of
"The Train Robbers"
(bud)
And Duke and His Boys get Taken by The Girl !!!
Chilibill
:cowboy:

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FFbU7yUXsn4

Ann-Margaret hair-do would not have survived in the old West. The film was 92 minutes long and 20 minutes or more were scenes of riding across the range. They were good looking shots, though. I liked Dominic Frontiere's score although it was a bit repetitive.

A mediocre Movie and one of them I wished John Wayne hadn't done.:wink:

I am glad he made it because it's one of his most enjoyable films. And one of my favorites

I liked Dominic Frontiere's score although it was a bit repetitive.
I personally thought it was great and wish it was on CD.

I am glad he made it because it's one of his most enjoyable films. And one of my favorites

I personally thought it was great and wish it was on CD.
It's just my opinion but yes the Music was quite good.
For me Brannigan is a much more enjoyable movie. :teeth_smile:

I personally thought it was great and wish it was on CD.

If you have the DVD, there is software you can use to strip the music from the DVD to burn on a CD.

If you have the DVD, there is software you can use to strip the music from the DVD to burn on a CD.

I know how to rip audio from the DVD, but I have yet to come across a program that can separate music from dialogue. What software are you talking about?

I know how to rip audio from the DVD, but I have yet to come across a program that can separate music from dialogue. What software are you talking about?


I will look at the DVD and see if the audio can be ripped. Some have multiple audio layers.

a good movie but rod taylor was as good as john wayne.taylor was a very underratted actor.i 6/10

a good movie but rod taylor was as good as john wayne.taylor was a very underratted actor.i 6/10

Hi ringo kid

WELCOME to The Original JWMB.

Please take a look around,
we're a friendly bunch of folks,
and there is a wealth of information to see,
regarding the great man.

You may find these links useful:-


John Wayne:- A Newbies Guide to Duke
(http://www.dukewayne.com/showthread.php?t=4134)

Link to Duke's Movies, Co-Stars- Pals Of The Saddle and Movie Locations (http://www.dukewayne.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5")

Thanks for your post, but to compare Rod Taylor,
to Duke, is not even worth considering.
Rod Taylor in my opinion is a good actor,
but no where in the same league as Duke!!

i agree with you nobody could touch duke in a film.hes in a different
league with any actor living or dead.
sincerely
steven dwyer

a good movie but rod taylor was as good as john wayne.taylor was a very underratted actor.i 6/10

"Something to do!"

This is a curious film. It has a lot of the normal Duke film trappings, but also tries for more-not quite succeeding. It's a fun ride tho, and it's a pity Rod Taylor didn't have a chance to do more films with John Wayne (and/or Ben Johnson) they all had good chemistry. I too would watch this more than, say, Rooster Cogburn. it's a good time killer. I just feel it's missing one undefinable element that could have made it REALLY good.

Did anyone else pick up that Ann-Margaret's and Duke's characters are named Mrs. Lowe and Lane - the same last names from "Hondo"? That can't be an accident.



We deal in lead, friend.

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).

Yes it's mentioned in the opening post on this movie

Not a bad film worth watching with a great twist in the end. The chemistery between the actors was brilliant..:thumbs_up: I love JWs 'my way or the highway' attitude ..I see the Duke had a MAJIC horse who could change the stripe on his face to a blaze , then back again at the start when they all set off..kind of like the majic paint horse in Hildalgo who could change his coat pattern:))):

This is a curious film. It has a lot of the normal Duke film trappings, but also tries for more-not quite succeeding. It's a fun ride tho, and it's a pity Rod Taylor didn't have a chance to do more films with John Wayne (and/or Ben Johnson) they all had good chemistry. I too would watch this more than, say, Rooster Cogburn. it's a good time killer. I just feel it's missing one undefinable element that could have made it REALLY good.

That element is that there is no face or identity to the bad guys.Hard to dislike if you do not know who they are. That and the fact there nust have been 50 of them.

Well we KNOW who they are-more thieves out for the gold. I agree that it needed villain/leader, but I don't feel it was mandatory.

i once read when burt kennedy was directing the train robbers,he wanted jack elam for the part of grady(rod taylor part)but john wayne didnt want him because when they made rio lobo together,any parts elam had with john wayne he stole the show.how much of that is true i dont know.

i once read when burt kennedy was directing the train robbers,he wanted jack elam for the part of grady(rod taylor part)but john wayne didnt want him because when they made rio lobo together,any parts elam had with john wayne he stole the show.how much of that is true i dont know.

I do not know if thats true or not. I do know he had Stother Martin in several of his films and Stother stole every scene in any film he ever made.

That was a curious thing to me. I read somewhere that Duke had problems with dogs and kids in films being scene stealers. As a result dogs didn't seem to have much longetivity in his films, and he didn't often work with children (except for his own, tho he did work with other children from time to time). Elam probably would have been a BIG thief in TRs. Taylor was grand in the part, but it always IMHO, seemed too small a part for him. As for Strother, you're dead-on. Maybe Duke really liked him.

The Jack Elam issue is in one of the more recent bios, but John Wayne had no problem with children, I remember a quote that went something like this, "A good story involves a dog, a child and a woman's love" that's what he looked for in his movies, of course if I'm remembering correctly this was a 50's quote.

EDIT: I found the quote, I was close but it actually goes "I always look for a story with basic emotions: a dog, a kid, a woman's love, a man's love"

and there is no date attached to it.

From what I've read and heard, overall, Duke loved children and had a soft spot for them-no doubt. Mark Rydell told how, on the set of The Cowboys, the kids were constantly "all over" Duke (I think he said something like Duke was like a big teddy bear to them). I know that there were certain elements Duke wanted in his film for emotional involvement, to keep them entertaining for families. There weren't many films tho, where I think he let youngsters have big scenes unless he liked them (or the story called for it-The Cowboys, Cahill, Donovan's Reef).

VERY TRUE - Both Elam and Martin were superb character actors that grabbed the audience's attention.

Peter Bogdanovich states that he was invited to direct Train Robbers but was unable to do so because of other commitments.

http://i37.servimg.com/u/f37/11/97/59/03/duke_c46.jpg (http://www.servimg.com/image_preview.php?i=4291&u=11975903)

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Lobby Card Mexicaine

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I seem to remember this was one of the few movies Duke actually apologised in !!

From memory he also apologised in the Undefeated ..... did he say sorry in any other movies ?

Just posted to my Ben Johnson page (http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com)

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The Train Robbers (Burt Kennedy, 1973) is mildly entertaining and lightly enjoyable, and I certainly prefer it to Rooster Cogburn (Stuart Millar, 1975). However, it's also slight and simplistic, and it needed a richer writer-director than Burt Kennedy to bring out greater depths and darkness, the kind of intricacy and tension that could have made the film something more than disposable entertainment. I didn't feel that Kennedy set up the bizarre, comically ambiguous "twist' ending with appropriate development, either. On the brighter side, Wayne's performance is quite sharp and fluid, really marking an alert groove. I love the silent rage the he suddenly displays at the end of Ann-Margaret's drunken diatribe.

The Train Robbers is free of pretensions. It doesn't have to be more than it is. The film is focused on telling a straightforward story and depicting western characters in a certain way. Simplicity, not simplistic. Simplicity is not a bad thing, certainly not a flaw.


This is one of John Waynes most forgotten movies, upon doing a search relating to this film I was surprised to realise how highly it is regarded by many who have watched it. Below is an interesting review by Roger Egbert which he did in 1973, his observation relating to the colour used in the movie is very interesting.

Burt Kennedy's "The Train Robbers" is a very curious Western, and it gets curiouser the more you think about it. I wonder if there's ever been a Western as visually uncluttered as this one. Most of the action takes place in the high desert around Durango, Mexico, and Kennedy goes for clean blue skies, sculpted white sand dunes and human figures arranged against the landscape in compositions so tasteful we're reminded of samurai dramas.
Aw, come on, you're probably thinking by now: What's all this crap about visual compositions? It's a John Wayne Western, isn't it? Is it any good, or not? Well, yes, it's fairly good, In a quiet and workmanlike sort of way, although there's a plot twist at the end that ruins things unnecessarily. But what's best about it, what makes it worth seeing, is Kennedy's visual approach to the subject of John Wayne. Wayne by now is an artifact, a national heirloom, one of the few immutable presences created by the movies. He is perhaps the only Western actor alive (maybe the only one ever) who can get away with scenes like this one: His group has been riding through the desert all day, pursued by a mysterious band of gunmen. They pull up at a small hacienda. Will they spend the night there? No, because Wayne hears a baby crying. There is likely to be shooting later on, and Wayne asks Ben Johnson: "Did you ever bury a baby? Well, neither did I, and I'm not about to start now. Ride on." They ride on into the night. Now this is honorable dialog; we agree with him; we're glad Wayne doesn't want to endanger the baby. And because it is John Wayne playing this scene, we never pause to realize that such a scene, and such dialog, would be ridiculously impossible in any other context. The audience would be howling if Steve McQueen or Paul Newman - or Robert Mitchum - tried the dialog.
Only Wayne can make plausible the morality in his Westerns. In the new Westerns, the ones by Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and their imitators, the West is a place of anarchy, sadism and routine bloodshed. It almost has to be. Apart from Wayne, there are no actors left who can get away with being decent Western heroes. Am I making this up? Think for a moment.
So. The Wayne character in "The Train Robbers" agrees to help a widow (Ann-Margret) recover some gold her husband had stolen some years before. She wants to return the gold to the railroad it was stolen from, to clear her husband's name and allow her young son to grow up proud. This seems like a sensible plan to Wayne, and he raises a band of friends (Ben Johnson, Rod Taylor, and two younger guns) to help the widow. Their payment will be the $50,000 reward money - although at the movie's end, they forgo even this.
There is a lot of action in the movie - blazing gun battles and stuff like that - but the movie's core is in the campfire scenes, when the characters talk about each other and their beliefs. The Wayne character, not to our surprise, turns out to be heroic in war and noble in peacetime, a subscriber to old moral codes. And it is here that Burt Kennedy's visual strategy comes in.
His material (he also wrote the movie) is, in the context of a Western being released in 1973, a little old-fashioned. The moral drives of Western heroes were fashionable in the 1950s, especially in the movies where John Ford directed Wayne. But no longer. In 1973, any plot exposition at all in a Western seems to drag.
So Kennedy wisely decided to eliminate absolutely every trace of visual clutter, and to shoot his movie with almost abstract clarity. The "town" at the beginning of the movie, for example, consists of two stark structures, a railroad track and a mountain on the horizon. There is not even a railroad crossing sign. Once out of town, the characters inhabit a landscape of horizons and clean natural lines. Kennedy goes for silhouettes and, as I've mentioned, for the kind of carefully casual arrangements of figures we find in samurai films - the Japanese Western.
The result is a movie that isolates the John Wayne mystique and surrounds it with the necessary simplicity and directness. It's too bad that the scale of the plot is a little too small for the scale of the characters, and too bad that Kennedy got in an ironic mood at the end. But he understands John Wayne, all right.

I don't often find myself agreeing with Roger Ebert even when I find him interesting, which I usually do. But this is a fair review. I agree that Burt Kennedy's writing is not his best, but his story is sufficient, and it operates on traditional values that seem like virtues today because they are scarce and, if I may say so, needed. The Train Robbers harkens back to the late 1950s when Kennedy wrote those genuinely rugged, stoic, lean and terse westerns for Boetticher and Scott. Those were impressive films because they were so straightforward, minimalist, and austere. Dramatically The Train Robbers wants to unfold like Comanche Station (1960), Ride Lonesome (1958) and The Tall T (1957). That is how it's written. But it is timed longer and paced slower. It's a 75-minute western stretched out to 93 minutes. Perhaps it's just in the editing. The film is about fifteen-to-twenty minutes longer than it needs to be. If it were shorter, it would seem fuller and play out with more suspense. You wouldn't notice the holes. But you couldn't release a film that short in the 1970s, not with a major star in it.

Technically, the craftsmanship on display is something you rarely see today. Visually, the film is real western, true western. I wallow in the hard light, the rich color, and the pristine scenery. There is dust, rain with thunder and lightning, mountains and rivers, and sunlight bouncing off surfaces and hat brims like some kind of blessing. Through these elements and nature ride men with honor. It's a photographer's western. Cameraman William Clothier was worth his weight in gold -- why don't people talk more about him? This is where his finest western photography resides for all time. The film is all about composition and movement, the pleasure of watching men and horses move across vast pictorial landscapes. It's eye candy, and I have thought so ever since I first saw it at the Hicksville Twin on Long Island on a freezing cold afternoon in early 1973. I was there for the first screening on opening day.

I enjoy The Train Robbers and I prefer it over The War Wagon, The Undefeated, Cahill, and Rooster Cogburn. I think Big Jake could have benefited from Burt Kennedy giving the script his once-over and narrowing the focus on what's important. And getting rid of those damn motorcyles.


Richard

It's beyond me what you all see in this movie! During the day their being chased, or at night their sitting around a campfire watching Ann Margret get Tipsey. Rather watch the Conqueror!

It's beyond me what you all see in this movie! During the day their being chased, or at night their sitting around a campfire watching Ann Margret get Tipsey. Rather watch the Conqueror!

What I see, is as an immensely enjoyable film from the last part of Duke's career. It has all the right ingredients, even if they aren't mixed quite right, making for one his best of the final ten he made.

It never for one instant tries to be something that it isn't. It doesn't try to be of the grim and unrelentingly dark world of Peckinpah or midnight cowboy or Easy Rider. Instead this is John Wayne's response to the perverseness that was really beginning to show it's ugly head at the time. It's a throwback to those great and lighthearted films of the 40's and early 50's. It's a nice contrast to what was happening at the time.

Regarding the faceless threat represented by the guys after the gold, it was meant to represent an natural force more than anything else I think. After all where's there's gold, there is bandits. They were more symbolic than anything else.

One thing that I refuse to believe is that Rod Taylor is the voice of Pongo from 101 Dalmatians.

The only thing that still bothers me about this movie is that Montalban seems superfluous. He is really an unnecessary character, who's functions could have been done by the plot.

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I seem to remember this was one of the few movies Duke actually apologised in !!

From memory he also apologised in the Undefeated ..... did he say sorry in any other movies ?

"Horse Soldiers," "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon," and "El Dorado".

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