1982
D: Phillip Borsos
C: Richard Farnsworth, Jackie Burroughs, Ken Pogue, Wayne Robson, Timothy Webber, Gary Reineke, David Petersen, Don MacKay, Samantha Langevin, Tom Heaton, Jim McLarty, George Dawson, Ray Michal, Stephen E. Miller
W: John Hunter
Original Music: Michael Conway Baker
Cinematography: Frank Tidy
Editing: Frank Irvine
Runtime: 110 min
Country: Canada
Language: English
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
Certification: PG
After serving 20 years in San Quentin for stagecoach robbery, Bill Miner “The Gentleman Bandit” goes to live with his sister in Washington. It’s 1901 and times–and modes of transportation–have changed, but Miner hasn’t. Unable to reform himself he quickly settles back into his old ways and begins robbing trains.
An interesting character, it’s said that in his day he was far more popular than Jesse James. He’s credited with originating the popular phrase “Hand’s Up!”
This was the film that brought Richard Farnsworth to the public’s attention. A longtime Hollywood stuntman (he did stunt work in Gone With the Wind and the Marx Bros. A Day at the Races), this was his first starring part. Who could have filled the role of this grizzly old outlaw with more authenticity? He even looks like the real Bill Miner. A classy, visually gorgeous masterwork covering the same pre-WWI period of the waning West as Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, but with a lot less blood and a lot more charm.
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