One More Train to Rob (1971)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Blistering performances.

Timothy Nolan((John Vernon) was lucky. He got to sit with unmarried Katy(Diane Moldaur) on the train, while the rest of the train robbers brandished hardware and dynamite in stopping the train and opening the mail car, to get at the strong box containing paper currency. The latter was stuffed into the empty suitcases of Nolan and Katy, who had no problem getting past security to their hotel room. They would soon marry, buy a mansion and make investments with nearly the whole of the loot Several years later, Nolan tries to steal a gold shipment from a Chinese mining consortium., but is thwarted. He needs a big loan or heist to avoid bankruptcy before his investments pay dividends. The commercial banks won't make the loan, so he keeps sounding out the Chinese for a loan. They aren't too keen on the idea.......Meanwhile, fellow train robber Harker Fleet(George Peppard) has been sent to prison, not for the train robbery, but for injuring the sheriff and deputy in his haste to exit a window when he heard that he was expected to marry a girl he had made pregnant. Fleet later discovered that the girl wasn't pregnant, although they had married that morning. She soon had the marriage annulled, as she didn't want to be married to a jailbird. Nolan had successfully deprived Fleet of his share of the loot, and had stolen his girl(Katy), who believed him married. Two and a half years later, Fleet was released, and moved to where Nolan and Katy were reported to be. Eventually, Nolan, Fleet, and Chang(head of the Chinese miners consortium) agreed on a complex plan to get the Chinese gold safely to San Francisco. Nolan was hoping to steal part of it. You may need to run this bye again to gain an understanding of the details. Anyway, there is a climactic shootout around the train and train station, the Chinese using dynamite in place of firearms, which they were unfamiliar with. It was Nolan and henchmen vs. Fleet, the Chinese, and Katy. Guess who ends up alive to claim Kate as his wife-to-be.......This is the only western I've encountered where Chinese gold miners are characterized as they usually were: in sizable groups. These offered them more protection from the depredations of mostly non-Chinese, which usually went unpunished, because California Chinese had virtually no civil rights, hence no protection by the judicial system. After 1852, there were thousands of Chinese gold miners, and by 1870, they constituted a third of the CA gold miners. They tended to mine what others considered less promising areas, and stay longer. Since they weren't allowed to become citizens, they were subject to the Foreign Miners Tax, which often robbed them of 50% of their profit. They were often subject to rapacious fake tax collectors......Sometimes described as a comedic western, the humor is mostly concentrated in one segment , where Fleet enters the bedroom of a sleeping prostitute to claim that he was with her all night, thus could not possibly be one of the train robbers. He had to deal with an idiosyncratic music box he accidentally activated that wouldn't stop playing. Fortunately, the prostitute was a sound sleeper..... See this entertaining film at YouTube.

I have watched many bad westerns over the years and from the first minutes I was afraid that this was just another. Something close to The Villain, a horrible western comedy from 1979 where the most funny part is Kirk Douglas' horse.One More Train To Rob is not just one more silly western, and it soon becomes surprisingly well made, with good acting, great stunts, not all to much shooting and almost no bad clichés. The characters are real, the props too and even the studio backgrounds look great. Most is simply pure quality. Only in the beginning the light setting is over done. The actors are not trying to be funny at all, neither does the director, and it works. Though it seems on occasions as a parody, perhaps to be considered as kind of a semi-comedy, with just a few a bit silly parts. But there's always an intention to it, and it doesn't really matter, cause it's a true western all the way and most pleasing of all, it has a great plot, with some surprises as well. And the good beating the bad in the end, at least kind of.

One More Train to Rob (1971) starts out a bit dull, on the average side. It is slow-going and the direction is really not motivated. I really didn't think it would amount to anything, and it doesn't, still, it is barely above average and will get you to the end. What helps it along is the acting of the actors, reliables like George Peppard, Soon-Tek Oh (Missing in Action 2 (1985)), John Vernon (Animal House (1978 )), Diana Muldaur, etc. They aren't that good and the script is nothing to goggle over, but still, seeing familiar acting faces helps.Hal Needham (frequent collaborator with Burt Reynolds) is in it.George Peppard plays a train bandit who gets caught and sent to prison. He comes back to find his old crew has changed and wants to get rid of him. Some absurd action scenes ensue and then it ends.In all, it is rather mild and not very engaging, but it's something to see on a rainy night.

It is astonishing to me that, in the world of the modern Western, no one studio has been willing to give this movie a release on home video or DVD. Astonishing, and disappointing, for it truly is a jewel, and features some fine action sequences and performances.In the film, George Peppard plays Harker Fleet, a dashing blonde haired Cowboy who was apparently served a stint in prison while his former comrade Timothy Nolan (played by John Vernon) got away both with their last big score, along with his woman (played by Diana Muldaur). Upon his release, Harker is determined to even the score, and sets about his task by aiding a local Chinese commune that is being preyed upon by Nolan and his henchmen.One fantastic action sequences has Harker slipping out to a barn, knocking out a handsome henchman, tying him up, and using the same rope to pull himself up so that he can listen in to a meeting between Nolan and his associates. Another has Harker knocking around Nolan's chief henchman Jim Gant at a party, while the Chinese infiltrate Nolan's compound and recover a prisoner who was being held for ransom.This was what classic Westerns were all about- men dealing with the bad guys not only with their guns, but also with their brains, and at times, with their fists. It is this intermingling of Harker's brains, braun, and skill with a six-shooter that makes this a very worthwhile film.Notwithstanding what I felt was a very sloppy and annoying performance by Diana Muldaur (in the film she seems so obnoxious and stodgy that you expect she was in part responsible for betraying Harker in the first place), this is a fantastic film, and I give it very high praise!