The First Great Train Robbery

Sean Connery - Edward Pierce
Donald Sutherland - Robert Agar
Lesley-Anne - Down Miriam
Alan Webb - Edgar Trent
Malcolm Terris - Henry Fowler
Robert Lang - Inspector Sharp
Michael Elphick - Burgess
Wayne Sleep - William 'Clean Willy' Williams
James Cossins - Inspector Harranby
André Morell - Judge
Brian Glover - Captain Jimmy

Entertaining period thriller based on writer/director Michael Crichton's own novel, and dramatising the first hold-up of an English moving railway train in 1855. Starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down, the film is peculiarly stoically paced given the expected excitement of a train heist and only picks up tempo during Connery's heroics on the train roof - stunts the actor admirably performed himself. The First Great Train Robbery was dedicated to the memory of cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, who died shortly after filming was completed.

A suave and highly respected gentleman crook, Edward Pierce (Connery), a master safe-cracker, Agar (Sutherland), and an oddball collection of Victorian crooks hatch a plan to steal £25,000 in gold bars from a moving train - the first robbery of it's type in England. The plan is to rob a British Army payroll train on its way to supply troops fighting in the Crimean War. Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), Pierce's mistress, is charged with using her sexuality to further the scheme by seducing the sex-crazed Huddleston and Bradford bank manager. Human fly, Clean Willy (Wayne Sleep), breaks out of prison when an agile figure is required to weave their way threw the railway station girders and into the Despatch Office. Willy turns police snitch which leads to his murder by Pierce, but also to the police heightening security around the train consignment. On the day of the raid Pierce's scheme comes apart at the seams.