The First Great Train Robbery (1978) on Netflix
PG19781h 50mAdventureCrimeDramaThriller
London, 1855. Edward Pierce, a society gentleman secretly a master thief, plots to rob a moving train of gold bound for British troops in the Crimea. The safes need four keys.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.9/1022,080 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1855, Edward Pierce moves through London society as a gentleman while running a career as a thief. He learns that a bank ships gold by train each month from London to Folkestone, where it goes by sea to pay British troops fighting in the Crimea. The gold rides in two safes in the baggage car, and four locks stand between the gold and anyone who wants it. Pierce recruits the screwsman Robert Agar, his mistress Miriam, and his chauffeur Barlow, and bribes the train guard Burgess. The keys belong to the bank's president Edgar Trent, its manager Henry Fowler, and the railway offices, so the crew sets out to copy each one in wax without its keeper noticing.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The First Great Train Robbery (1978)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While filming at Heuston Station in Dublin, which doubled for London Bridge, a diesel locomotive leaked fuel onto the tracks, and the production's steam engine then ignited it, causing a large fire in the station.
- Sean Connery was told the train would travel at only 20 miles per hour during his time on top of the cars, but the crew misjudged its speed and it was actually doing 40 to 50 miles per hour.
- Sean Connery slipped and nearly fell off the train during a jump between two carriages, and had difficulty keeping smoke and cinders from the locomotive out of his eyes.
- Sean Connery originally turned down the film, judging the script "too heavy", but was asked to reconsider, and after reading the novel and meeting Michael Crichton he changed his mind.
- The plot is loosely based on the 1855 Great Gold Robbery, in which Edward Agar, an expert screwsman, and William Pierce, a former South Eastern Railway employee, engineered the theft of gold being shipped to the British Army in the Crimean War.
- To make the train look like the 1850s, a J-15 class 0-6-0 No 184 of 1880 had its wheels and side rods covered and its roof removed, and its coaches were built from modern railway flat wagons.
