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.

The First Great Train Robbery (1979)
  • Rating: (6,534 votes)
  • Tagline:Never have so few taken so much from so many. »
  • Runtime:110 minutes
  • Director: Michael Crichton
  • Country:UK
  • Actors:
    Pierce
    Sean Connery
    Agar
    Donald Sutherland
    Miriam
    Lesley-Anne Down
    Trent
    Alan Webb
    Fowler
    Malcolm Terris
    Sharp
    Robert Lang
    Burgess
    Michael Elphick
    Clean Willy
    Wayne Sleep
    Emily Trent
    Pamela Salem
    Elizabeth Trent
    Gabrielle Lloyd
  • Genres:Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, History, Thriller
  • Producer:
    John Foreman
    producer  
  • Plots: 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. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
The First Great Train Robbery
  • User's comment: by Ygraine

    Some people say that Crichton's books do not make for good movies. In this case it is not so. Crichton became fascinated with Victorian England, and was able to educate the public in a very useful way as well as write a suspenseful story. The movies does not really educate in the same way, unless you rent the DVD and listen to the director's comments. But the movie gives a very authentic feeling of Victorian England and has good pacing for the suspense aspect of it. I love movies based on true stories, and this one is one of them. We know all about exactly how it was done because the main character was caught, told the court everything, and then audaciously escaped! One really important thing that Crichton says: the great majority of crimes are never solved. Something to chew on.


  • Quotes: Edward Pierce: [narration] In the year 1855, England and France were at war with Russia in the Crimea. The English troops were paid in gold. Once a month, twenty-five thousand pounds in gold was loaded into strongboxes inside the London bank of Huddleston and Bradford and taken by trusted armed guards to the railway station. The convoy followed no fixed route or timetable. At the station, the gold was loaded into the luggage van of the Folkestone train for shipment to the coast and from there to the Crimea. The strongboxes were placed into two specially-built Chubb safes constructed of three-quarter inch tempered steel. Each safe weighed five hundred and fifty pounds. Each safe was fitted with two locks, requiring two keys, or four keys altogether. For security, each key was individually protected. Two keys were entrusted to the railway dispatcher who kept them locked in his office. A third was in the custody of Mr. Edgar Trent, president of the Huddleston and Bradford. And the fourth key was given to Mr. Henry Fowler, manager of the Huddleston and Bradford. The presence of so much gold in one place naturally aroused the interest of the English criminal elements. But in 1855 there had never been a robbery from a moving railway train. Edward Pierce: No respectable gentleman is THAT respectable. Edward Pierce: What exactly are you constructing?
  • Also known as: 1855: la prima grande rapina al treno (Italy), Az első nagy vonatrablás (Hungary), Der erste große Eisenbahnraub (West Germany), Der große Eisenbahnraub (West Germany), Det første store togrøveri (Denmark), Det første store togrøveriet (Norway - imdb display title), Det stora tågrånet (Sweden), El gran assalt al tren (Spain - Catalan title), El gran robo de tren (Venezuela), El primer gran asalto al tren (Spain), I klopi ton aionon (Greece - transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title), Kultajuna (Finland), La grande attaque du train d'or (France), O Grande Ataque ao Comboio do Ouro (Portugal), O Primeiro Assalto de Trem (Brazil), The Great Train Robbery (USA), Velika pljacka voza (Serbia - imdb display title),

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