Michael Crichton (1978)

The rich-toned cinematography of the late Geoffrey Unsworth and the varied, jolly score by Jerry Goldsmith have an elegance absent from most other departments of Michael Crichton’s The First Great Train Robbery, adapted by the director from his own novel.  Crichton’s previous films, the novel thrillers Westworld and Coma, were more distinctive entertainments than this one.  It’s more ambitious than, but ends up falling short of, the two recent big-screen adaptations of Agatha Christie stories (Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile) whose high production values and box-office success it seeks to emulate.  As with the Christies, there’s a visually appealing framework – as well as a lack of tension at crucial moments – but the tone of The First Great Train Robbery is less consistent, and the performances are less likeable.

The time is 1855, the place Victorian England:  every so often, Crichton injects a bit of sex or profanity to contradict received ideas of the period and conventional representations of it on screen.  Edward Sims Pierce (Sean Connery), the high society cracksman hero, is the latest example of a popular screen type of recent years, the irresistible crook.  Crichton’s screenplay does at least lend some irony to the conception.  Although the dialogue is in all respects crude and Connery’s James Bond persona is exploited, his leading-man charm isn’t milked as tiresomely as Paul Newman’s and Robert Redford’s was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting.  Connery’s voice reads an introductory narrative.  His distinctive burr isn’t always easy to decipher – perhaps the problem is that, like Crichton, Connery has his tongue stuck firmly in his cheek.

It’s only at the climax to The First Great Train Robbery that we realise the opening monologue is part of Pierce’s evidence at his eventual trial.  In the courtroom, the vigorously self-righteous judge (André Morell) asks why he committed the robbery at the heart of the story.  After a long pause – too long for such a weak punchline – Pierce replies, ‘I needed the money’.  The public gallery erupts into laughter and an enthusiastic reception awaits the prisoner as he’s led handcuffed away.   Crichton could have left it at that but instead has Connery burst into 007 mode – he lays out legion policemen, leaps into a getaway vehicle with his sidekick (Donald Sutherland) and escapes to rapturous applause.  Why is Pierce such a folk hero?  Connery is charismatic and there’s plenty of evidence of his character’s talents for both organisation and improvisation but Crichton appears to admire Pierce chiefly because he exposes the self-centred hypocrisy of the society to which he belongs and against which he rebels.  With Lesley-Anne Down as Pierce’s mistress and, in minor roles, a collection of good British character actors that includes James Cossins, Janine Duvitski, Robert Lang, Malcolm Terris and Alan Webb.

[1979]