The First Great Train Robbery
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| The Great Train Robbery | |
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 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Michael Crichton |
| Produced by | John Foreman |
| Written by | Michael Crichton |
| Starring | Sean Connery Donald Sutherland Lesley-Anne Down |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| Editing by | David Bretherton |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | February 2, 1979 |
| Running time | 110 min. |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The First Great Train Robbery — in the U.S. also known as The Great Train Robbery — is a 1979 film directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay based on his novel The Great Train Robbery. The film starred Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down.
The film features many picturesque characters and scenes of the Victorian era, particularly the criminal mobs of the time. Although set in London and Kent, most of the filming took place in Ireland. In particular, the final scenes were filmed in Parliament Square of Trinity College, Dublin and Kent Railway Station in Cork.
The music for two pianos, played by the characters Elizabeth (Gabrielle Lloyd) and Emily Trent (Pamela Salem) during the scene in which Pierce (Sean Connery) and Agar (Donald Sutherland) surreptitiously enter the Trent's townhouse in order to obtain an impression of one of the safe keys from the wine cellar, is from the third movement of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448 Molto Allegro.
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[edit] Origins of the plot
The story is loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, in which a cracksman called William Pierce (named Edward Pierce in Crichton's book and film) engineered the theft of a train-load of gold being shipped to the British Army during the Crimean War; £12,000 in gold coin and ingots from the London to Folkestone passenger train was stolen by Pierce and his accomplices, a clerk in the railway offices called Tester, and a skilled screwsman called Agar. The robbery was a year in the planning and involved making sets of duplicate keys from wax impressions for the locks on the safes and bribing the train's guard, a man called Burgess.[1] . The plot was inspired by Kellow Chesney's 1970 book 'The Victorian Underworld' , which is a comprehensive examination into the more sordid aspects of Victorian society.
Similarly, in his screenplay Crichton used another real-life character from Chesney's book, that of a housebreaker called Williams (or Whitehead) who, sentenced to death in Newgate Prison, managed to escape by climbing the 15 meter (50 ft) tall sheer granite walls, squeezed through the revolving iron spikes at the top and climbed over the inward projecting sharp spikes above them before making his escape over the roofs. Crichton based his character 'Clean Willy' Williams, played by dancer Wayne Sleep, on Williams.[2]
[edit] Awards
- Edgar Award, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, 1980 — Michael Crichton
[edit] Deleted Scene
One of the deleted scenes in this film includes the former Miss Ireland and model Nuala Holloway. A brief scene which shows Sean Connery and Nuala Holloway running from a bedroom was filmed. The scene shows Connery's character rushing when his accomplice Donald Sutherland has fulfilled his task of copying a safe key and has a riot faked, was cut out to tone the promiscuity of Connery's character.
However, Nuala Holloway appeared in other scenes, including the climax set in a courtroom and appeared as a double for Lesley-Anne Down. Coincidentally, some of the scenes in the movie were filmed at a disused railway station in Nuala's home town of Moate, Co. Westmeath in Ireland.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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