Wizard-8 "The Train Robbers" was a box office disappointment when released to theaters in 1973. Most likely the reasons audiences largely ignored it at the time were that westerns (at least "standard" westerns without an interesting edge) were on the way out, and that John Wayne's box office draw power was weakening. The fact that the movie has less action that you'd think (it takes about an hour for the first real action sequence to occur) probably also hurt its appeal. But seen today more than forty years later, the movie has a lot of appeal. John Wayne may be older and slower than he was in the 1950s and 1960s, but he still commands the screen pretty well, and comes across as very likable. Writer/director Burt Kennedy keeps the movie moving fairly well despite the lack of action as well as a lack of tension (there is no doubt that the protagonists will prevail.) The movie also looks pretty good, with professional photography and some visually striking backdrops. While the movie may come across as old- fashioned a lot of the time, it is without doubt entertaining. Apparently others would agree with me, seeing that the movie has been regularly aired on cable TV, which leaves me confident that the movie by now has made a respectable profit.

bigverybadtom Lane is a drifting man in the Wild West, with a gang of several war buddies and some new hires, including a young man he managed to get out of a life of crime. Mrs. Lowe is a woman who tells of a husband who was part of a gang of ten robbers who stole $500,000 from a train years ago, and the husband and two others were killed, but not before hiding the gold in Mexico. Lane and company go with Lowe through wild lands to Mexico, with another gang of horsemen in pursuit-plus a mysterious well-dressed man who follows everyone else.The movie has an unusually low amount of violence and shooting, but most of all a logical but shocking twist at the end. I won't give it away. See the movie.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . into the Mexican desert, led by John Wayne and Ann-Margret. Without the benefit of his TIME MACHINE, Rod Taylor--one of Wayne's two geezer buddies among the train robbers--confesses that he couldn't get it up on his last bordello visit. When Ann-Margret, posing as "the widow Lowe," proposes to Wayne's character, he rejects her by saying that "I have a saddle older than you are." Ann-Margret could have replied that she was more concerned about the age of John's long-johns, since her alleged single mom status is totally bogus, and she's actually a hooker named "Lilly" (with two "L's"). No doubt Wayne's "Mr. Lane" doesn't want to get saddled with the widow lady's (non-existant) six-year-old son, since he takes off after Lilly like gang-busters as soon as he learns that she's an unattached "sadder but wiser" gal. Wayne dynamites the entire town of "Liberty, TX" here, since during the years after he headlined a flick titled THE ALAMO somebody finally explained to him that Crockett & Co. were actually dying to RE-ENSLAVE the Blacks of Mexico's Texas Province (who were as free as Jim Bowie and Sam Houston before Davey swaggered along).

utgard14 Widow Ann-Margret hires John Wayne and his gang to go into Mexico and recover some gold stolen by her late husband. In the '60s and '70s, John Wayne's movies featured him acting opposite an assortment of actors he had seldom, if ever, acted with before. This includes older stars who, for one reason or another, had never appeared in a Wayne film in the glory days, as well as newer stars. Most of this is because Duke's old friends had either died, retired, or just gotten too old to play most of the roles in his films. You do have Ben Johnson here, and he's solid, but you also have Ann-Margret, Rod Taylor, Christopher George, Ricardo Montalban, and Bobby Vinton. Gone are the days of Ward Bond and John Qualen. All of these actors do fine but none match Duke's screen presence. This was often the case in his later years where he had to carry the movies himself.Ann-Margret's young enough to be Duke's granddaughter so the thought of them having a romance is pretty gross. Thankfully, the movie never goes there beyond an amusing scene where Duke turns her down. It goes without saying she's beautiful and sexy, as usual. Director Burt Kennedy was no fool and in one scene where she has to change into some jeans, the camera lingers on her backside like a Levi's commercial. Speaking of Kennedy, what was with all the horse riding footage? Did he have to fill time? Anyway, it's light on action but pleasant overall. A decent time-killer.