The Train Robbers (1973)

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Lane is a drifting man in the Wild West, with a gang of several war buddies and some new hires, including a young man he managed to get out of a life of crime. Mrs. Lowe is a woman who tells of a husband who was part of a gang of ten robbers who stole $500,000 from a train years ago, and the husband and two others were killed, but not before hiding the gold in Mexico. Lane and company go with Lowe through wild lands to Mexico, with another gang of horsemen in pursuit-plus a mysterious well-dressed man who follows everyone else.The movie has an unusually low amount of violence and shooting, but most of all a logical but shocking twist at the end. I won't give it away. See the movie.

. . . into the Mexican desert, led by John Wayne and Ann-Margret. Without the benefit of his TIME MACHINE, Rod Taylor--one of Wayne's two geezer buddies among the train robbers--confesses that he couldn't get it up on his last bordello visit. When Ann-Margret, posing as "the widow Lowe," proposes to Wayne's character, he rejects her by saying that "I have a saddle older than you are." Ann-Margret could have replied that she was more concerned about the age of John's long-johns, since her alleged single mom status is totally bogus, and she's actually a hooker named "Lilly" (with two "L's"). No doubt Wayne's "Mr. Lane" doesn't want to get saddled with the widow lady's (non-existant) six-year-old son, since he takes off after Lilly like gang-busters as soon as he learns that she's an unattached "sadder but wiser" gal. Wayne dynamites the entire town of "Liberty, TX" here, since during the years after he headlined a flick titled THE ALAMO somebody finally explained to him that Crockett & Co. were actually dying to RE-ENSLAVE the Blacks of Mexico's Texas Province (who were as free as Jim Bowie and Sam Houston before Davey swaggered along).

Widow Ann-Margret hires John Wayne and his gang to go into Mexico and recover some gold stolen by her late husband. In the '60s and '70s, John Wayne's movies featured him acting opposite an assortment of actors he had seldom, if ever, acted with before. This includes older stars who, for one reason or another, had never appeared in a Wayne film in the glory days, as well as newer stars. Most of this is because Duke's old friends had either died, retired, or just gotten too old to play most of the roles in his films. You do have Ben Johnson here, and he's solid, but you also have Ann-Margret, Rod Taylor, Christopher George, Ricardo Montalban, and Bobby Vinton. Gone are the days of Ward Bond and John Qualen. All of these actors do fine but none match Duke's screen presence. This was often the case in his later years where he had to carry the movies himself.Ann-Margret's young enough to be Duke's granddaughter so the thought of them having a romance is pretty gross. Thankfully, the movie never goes there beyond an amusing scene where Duke turns her down. It goes without saying she's beautiful and sexy, as usual. Director Burt Kennedy was no fool and in one scene where she has to change into some jeans, the camera lingers on her backside like a Levi's commercial. Speaking of Kennedy, what was with all the horse riding footage? Did he have to fill time? Anyway, it's light on action but pleasant overall. A decent time-killer.

Mrs. Lowe (Ann-Margret) is a widow of a man who led a 10 men gang who robbed a train of $500k of gold. He hid the gold, but was killed before he could return to it. She wants to tell railroad the location of the gold so she could clear the family name for her son. Lane (John Wayne) convinces her to get the gold themselves to get the $50k reward money. Lane gathers up his gang, but is soon being followed by others who want the gold for themselves.The biggest problem for this movie is the motivations. John Wayne is so perfectly good. There's a half a million dollars out there, and he never tries to steal it. When it's all over, they even give away the reward money. And Mrs. Lowe's story doesn't add up. She should be worried about being robbed showing the location. There is an easy trust at the start that makes no sense. Even with the reveal, the trust seems out of place. Everybody's motivations are all seen through rose colored glasses.The setting is beautifully desolated. Director/writer Burt Kennedy blew up a few things. It looks good. The action is reasonable, but the shootouts aren't that exciting. The story is straight forward and bland. It's an uninspired western.