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Monday, December 30, 2019

ROBBERY (1967)

Fact-inspired by Britain’s 1963 ‘Great Train Robbery,’ this Peter Yates film is slick & gripping even if halfway in you start to think you’ve seen this one before.* Perhaps the docu-drama style felt fresher at the time. Or could it be that the main event, a ‘Mail Train’ cash robbery of £3 mill, can’t top the prologue, a diamond heist that quickly becomes a wild car chase thru the twisty streets of London. (A sequence that caught Steve McQueen’s eye and led to Yates getting BULLITT next year.) This nifty set piece, immaculately shot by Douglas Slocombe with striking clarity (London and its cars rarely looked so posh), comes on before we’ve even met leading man Stanley Baker. Co-producing his own starring vehicle and not in the best scene! A typical bad move by a good actor doomed to play also-ran to similar looking/infinitely starrier Sean Connery.**

DOUBLE-BILL: *And maybe you have: BUSTER/’88 (not seen here) and a good two part mini-series THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY/’13, both on the same story. OR: **Sean Connery himself in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY/’78, but a different one, set in the Victorian period.

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