One More Train to Rob

George Peppard is a train robber by profession. After his last, failed robbery, he wound up in prison. Now he's out and looking for vengeance on his former partners, especially John Vernon, who speaks with an Irish accent.

This looks like a TV movie writ large, and that's probably the effect of having Andrew Maclaglen direct. He was the look-alike son of Victor Maclaglen. After working as an assistant director on action films, he started directing TV, including a lot of westerns like HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL and GUNSMOKE. He started directing action movies. They were mostly westerns, but there was always something cartoon-like about his films. He directed his last movie in 1991. He died in 2014, aged 94.

Showing some of the same character as his Hannibal Smith leader of the A-Team, George Peppard plays an amiable outlaw who takes the fall for a train robbery. After serving a sentence in prison Peppard gets out and finds that his close associate John Vernon has married Peppard's woman Diana Muldaur and is now quite prosperous and he and his former gang are exploiting Chinese immigrants who originally came to the USA to work on the Central Pacific Railway.

This was a year or two before David Carradine's Kung Fu series debuted and where Asian Americans got themselves a western hero. Not talked about too much, but the Chinese and Japanese who immigrated in such numbers were the subject of punitive laws that denied them any kind of rights just as you see here in One More Train To Rob. I don't think that Vernon's Irish brogue was an accident either. A man named Dennis Kearney an Irish immigrant was the leader of a vigilante movement in California against the Asians that cost many lives.

For some reason One More Train To Rob is singularly unavailable. If broadcast I suggest you watch it.

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.

Harker Fleet (George Peppard) , a lively and a womanizer bandit, belongs to a gang dedicated to robbing trains and the cunning Tim Nolan (John Vernon) is one of his cronies. They steal $40,000 in money and jewelry from a California train, but Tim betrays him. Nolan steals part of the loot from his last hit and sets up a trap to send him to prison. The group split up and while they are hiding out awaiting the rendezvous to divide the loot, Harker is cornered, framed and put in jail . Furthermore, Nolan takes advantage of the opportunity to take away his girlfriend Kate (Diana Muldaur) and marry her. Nowadays, Nolan covets the gold belonging to a Chinese community of miners (Richard Loo, Soon-Tek Oh, France Nuyen) and will do anything to get it. While Feet seeks revenge and helps the Chinese people against the evil Nolan. But our starring sets out to find Katy and Nolan and get his share of the loot. He'd been cheated out of his gold... and his woman... now the only weapon he had left was... revenge!

A so-so Western with thrills, shootouts, train robberies, crosses and double-crosses. The plot is plain and simple, a likeable ex-con exacts revenges against a previous colleague, while helps an unfortunate community of Chinese people. One is so used to seeing either James Stewart or John Wayne or Dean Martin as the stars of Andrew McLagen's Westerns that it comes as something of a surprise to find George Peppard leading the cast of this One More Train to Rob(1971). Here George Peppard gives a passable acting in his usual lukewarm style as a convict who is released from prison and seeks for vengeance on his former partners who cheated him out of his share. While John Vernon as his nemesis , the wealthy owner who betrayed him, and the always elegant and attractive Diana Muldaur as the woman between two men. Keep an eye open for former stars Ben Cooper as a deputy, France Nuyen as a prostitute, Harry Carey Jr as a henchman, as well as familar secondaries: Steve Sandor , Soon-Tek Oh, Richard Loo, Robert Donner , John Doucette Don 'Red' Barry, Merlin Olsen, Timothy Scott, Jerry Gatlin, Lane Chandler's final film, John Mitchum, and Marie Windsor.

The motion picture was middlingly but professionally directed by Andrew McLagen, and it has flaws, gaps and shortcomings. McLagen marshals his scenary nice, and the script almost manages to hold one's attention much of the time. Andrew was the son of Ford's stock company stalwart, Victor McLagen. He was born in London but grew up around Hollywood, where his father often took him on movie sets. He learned the art of directing from greats like John Ford, who eventually gave him a job as assistant director on The Quiet man (1952). He holds the distinction of directing the most episodes of Gunsmoke (1955) and of Have gun Will travel (1957) . Being one of the few directors to have directed both Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, including Undefeated (1969) and Chisum (1970). He was a prolific craftsman who made all kinds of genres , such as : Wartime :¨Dirty dozen next mission, Sea wolves, Breakthrough, Wild geese, The Devil's brigade¨ . Action adventure genre: Sahara , Ffolkes , Mitchell, On wings of eagles . And Western : ¨Shenandoah, The way west , The rare breed, Bandolero, The last hard men , The Blue and the Gray and The shadow riders again¨ with Katharine Ross. Rating : 5.5/10 . Average, though passable and acceptable at times. Well worth watching for George Peppard fans.

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!