One More Train to Rob

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.

It could've been a solid 10/10 if the story was a bit deeper with like 2.5 to 2 hours runtime.

Great actors, decent budget and a very clever storyline with plots and mindgames.

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.

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.

George Peppard is excellent with outstanding support from John Vernon and Diana Muldaur. A great old-time western with twists and turns, humor, action and Victor McLaglen at his best. It is certainly his best western movie.

I would love to be able to see this again. I'm sure it will come to DVD someday, but what's holding it up?

I haven't seen in on television in years. Have people totally forgotten about this lost jewel?

I've been watching for it to come available for years. I hope a number of others who have seen it bother to comment in the hope that it may affect the decision to release it.