The First Great Train Robbery — known in the U.S. as The Great Train Robbery — is a 1979 film directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay based on his novel The Great Train Robbery. The film starred Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down. In 1854, Edward Pierce, on the outside a charismatic and well-established member of London’s high society, but in secret an opportunistic and cynical master thief, makes plans to steal a shipment of gold being transported monthly from London to Folkestone to finance the Crimean War and replace it with lead bars... to escape premature detection. But the bank has taken strict precautions, including locking the gold in two heavy Chubb safes, each of which has two locks, thus requiring a total of four keys to open. When a first test robbery goes awry, Pierce recruits his old acquaintance Robert Agar, a pickpocket and screwsman, as an accomplice. Pierce’s mistress Miriam, a beautiful actress, and his cab driver Barlow also join in on the plot, and the guard to the safe car, Burgess, is also bribed into participation.
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