The initial music by Jerry Goldsmith suggests right away that there’s something entertaining coming up involving trains! That feeling is reinforced when Michael Elphick throws a would-be thief from a fast train down an embankment, where he ends up at the feet of "Pierce" – Sean Connery. This gentleman, with his bowler hat, seems like he belongs in the Reform Club, just as Phileas Fogg did at the beginning of "Around …

I watched this again after quite a while, prompted by the new Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber. It’s a pretty good heist movie, but what I noticed was that the thieves were taking gold intended for British soldiers—so they weren't robbing some company—and Sean Connery’s character didn’t hesitate to kill someone. Despite that, I still enjoyed it and found several scenes genuinely suspenseful, including a memorable sce…

Michael Crichton wrote and directed “The Great Train Robbery,” which came out in 1978 or 1979. It was inspired by the actual Great Gold Robbery that happened in England back in 1855. Sean Connery takes on the role of the leader, Lesley-Anne Down is his girlfriend, and Donald Sutherland portrays a safecracker who joins forces with them. I usually avoid movies about heists because I have trouble rooting for criminal…