General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Train Robbers

The Train Robbers is a 1973 American Western film written and directed by Burt Kennedy, starring John Wayne as a gunman hired by a widow, played by Ann-Margret, to recover a fortune in gold her late husband stole from a train, so that she can return it and clear his name.¹^•² It was produced by Michael Wayne through Batjac Productions, with John Wayne as executive producer, and distributed by Warner Bros.³

Key fact	Detail
Release	February 1973; Los Angeles and New York opening 7 February 1973; copyright registered 7 February 1973 (LP42911)³
Runtime and format	91 to 92 minutes on 10 reels; Technicolor, Panavision widescreen; rated PG³
Principal cast	John Wayne (Lane), Ann-Margret (Mrs. Lowe, also known as Lilly), Rod Taylor (Grady), Ben Johnson (Jesse), Christopher George (Calhoun), Ricardo Montalban (the Pinkerton man)³
Production	Batjac Productions, Inc.; produced by Michael Wayne, executive produced by John Wayne; shot in Durango, Mexico, late March to early June 1972¹^•³
Key crew	William H. Clothier, cinematographer; Dominic Frontiere, music; Frank Santillo, editor; Alfred Sweeney, production designer¹
Critical reception	Metascore 64 from 8 critic reviews, with 4 positive and 4 mixed; Tomatometer 40% from 5 reviews⁴^•⁵

Spoilers

Plot

The story begins in the small town of Liberty, Texas, where Civil War veteran Will Jesse and his friends Grady and Ben Young, together with hired guns Calhoun and Sam Turner, await the arrival of Lane.³ On the train, Lane meets Mrs. Lowe, a widow who hires him and his crew for a mission across the border into Mexico.²^•⁶

Her husband Matt Lowe led a gang of ten that stole a gold shipment from a train five years earlier, and before he died he revealed the location of the hidden fortune in Mexico.³^•⁶ Mrs. Lowe does not want the gold for herself: she plans to turn it in for a reward, so that her son will not grow up with the stigma of having a robber for a father.²^•⁷ The party rides into the desert pursued by bandits and a mysterious rider on horseback, who is eventually revealed as a Pinkerton detective played by Ricardo Montalban.⁶^•³ The film ends with a plot twist that several critics found unnecessary or silly.⁸^•⁹

Production

The film was shot on location in Durango, Mexico, from late March to early June 1972.³ An entire town, named Liberty, TX after the fictional town in the film, was built north of Durango at a cost of $100,000, and was subsequently destroyed to film the story's climax.¹ In May 1972 production was halted briefly by a fire on part of the outdoor set; two unidentified men were injured, but the film was completed on schedule despite the delay.¹

Crew. Burt Kennedy served as both director and writer, with John Wayne as executive producer and Michael Wayne as producer.³ The cinematographer was William H. Clothier, whose widescreen work several reviewers credit as the film's visual strength.¹^•⁵ Dominic Frontiere composed the score, which reviewers generally praised.⁹^•⁵

Reception

Contemporary critics were divided. Roger Ebert, the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film three of four stars and called it "fairly good, in a quiet and workmanlike sort of way," praising Kennedy's decision to strip the visuals of clutter: clean blue skies, white sand dunes, and figures arranged against the landscape in compositions he compared to samurai dramas.⁸ He argued that Kennedy's austere visual strategy isolates the John Wayne mystique, though he thought the plot too small for the characters and disliked the ironic ending.⁸ Variety called it "an above-average John Wayne actioner" with suspense, comedy, and humanism not usually found in the formula.⁴ A student review in the Texas Tech University Daily was far harsher, calling the film mediocre and objecting that the pursuers remain nameless black hats with no depth.⁹

Retrospective assessments have been mixed. The film holds a Metascore of 64, based on 8 critic reviews, with 4 positive and 4 mixed and none negative.⁴ On Rotten Tomatoes it holds 40% from 5 critics, with an audience score of 56% from more than 2,500 ratings.⁵ Time Out described it as an inoffensive Western in which Wayne's gang rides after half a million dollars' worth of stolen gold to turn it in for a $50,000 reward, noting the male camaraderie and big-country theme music.¹⁰ Emanuel Levy called it one of Wayne's weakest late films, while other reviewers single out the supporting cast, particularly Christopher George, Ben Johnson, and Rod Taylor.⁵

Place in Wayne's late career

The film belongs to the last stretch of John Wayne's career; he died in 1979.⁵ Warner Bros. released two Wayne Westerns in 1973, The Train Robbers and Cahill U.S. Marshal, and Kennedy had previously directed Wayne in The War Wagon (1969).⁷ Several commentators note that the film looks backward: released at a time when the Western was being remade by Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, it harks back to the older style of Western Wayne helped make famous, and one reviewer remarks that it would have felt less out of place a decade earlier.⁴^•⁵ Despite the misleading title, the film is not about a train robbery; the robbery happened years before the story begins, and the plot is a pursuit across the desert to recover its proceeds.⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Westerns before 1980 › Released 1961 to 1979

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?