aramis-112-804880

"The Train Robbers" features Ann-Margaret, whom I've always liked; John Wayne, whom I don't mind; and Rod Taylor, Ben Johnson and Christopher George, none of whom I've ever taken to.

The premise: one-named Ann-Margret, looking not at all like herself as a blonde, is a widow who wants to find some gold her late husband stole. She wants to return it for the reward.

John Wayne is the westerner she acquires to help her, and who recruits the gang.

Unlike "True Grit" Wayne is already on the lady's side when the movie opens. Unlike "The Magnificent Seven" (a far better movie) the gang of seven is already recruited.

The are pursued by lots of faceless horsemen.

So far, all is perfectly straightforward. But who is the stranger played by Ricardo Montalban, and what is he up to? His character is both the most interesting yet the most disappointing, as I really like him but he has little to do and almost no dialogue.

Not a bad little western, but the bad guys need to be better defined. And Ricardo Montalban's character needed to be pumped up. Why engage an actor of his talent and charm, then not use it?

Director Burt Kennedy did a couple of my favorite western spoofs ("Support Your Local Sheriff/Gunfighter") and he later took a line from this movie for a later film, "Where the Hell's that Gold?"

Though the movie opens to silence, the score is solid.

This series started my reading of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books.

Nero Wolfe is an eighth of a ton detective who never leaves his house and has a wide variety of fears, including automobiles.

For legwork he relies on his assistant, Archie. Though Archie is his Watson, detailing his cases, since Wolfe never leaves home Archie takes a large part in the cases. He also has extremely witty narration (carried over in this series by voice-overs by the actor who plays Archie, Tim Hutton).

Hutton is wonderful and his dialogue and voice-overs are delicious for anyone who enjoys the English language.

I'm not familiar with the actor who plays Wolfe, but he seems young for the role. Still, he's suitably rude.

Warning: though the books ran for decades, the series is set in a colorful, never-ending 1950s, as they never were. The art design is fresh and vibrant, though occasionally bewildering. This series is worth watching for the ties alone.

The series has an ensemble cast where the actors play various parts in different episodes, and that works great.

Not all the episodes are that great. They mainly focused on the shorter works and rarely touched Stout's finely written novels. I wish they'd been allowed to do more.

Enjoyable detective show. Enjoy.