Uno spaccone chiamato Hark

Andrew V. McLaglen ("McLintock!" "The Way West," "Shenandoah") outdoes himself with a slight of a story, "One More Train to Rob". Clearly George Peppard's funniest and, perhaps, best performance as the "good, bad guy train robber" cheated by his friend, John Vernon (also a fine performance) out of his share and out of his woman, Diana Muldaur. Muldaur, as always, combines beauty, brains and class. However, here, she even manages to be funny and sexy. She and Peppard have great chemistry. The movie has some surprising twists and turns, and even a social conscience. The plight of immigrant Chinese during the 19th Century and the racial injustices shown them deliver a surprisingly effective subplot. "One More Train to Rob" is one of my favorite westerns, and I'm so happy it is finally showing on ENCORE WESTERN Channel. I give it an "8".

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.

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!

This is a great old 1970s western with everything you'd want in one of these films. Great actors/acting, really well done action scenes, a good story/writing, and even some great jokes. A win.

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.