Movie filmed in Moate gets TV screening this week
A Hollywood movie, which was largely shot at Moate Railway Station and on the local track, will be screened at 9.05 pm this Friday night on TG4.
The movie, ‘The First Great Train Robbery,’ released in the US simply as 'The Great Train Robbery', boasts an all-star cast such as Sean Connery, Lesley Ann-Down and Donald Sutherland drew huge local interest while filming took place in the summer of 1977.
Children in some of the schools in Moate were allowed out to watch some of the scenes being filmed and many local people became extras on the shoot. The cast and crew of ‘Great Train Robbery’ stayed at the Royal Hoey Hotel in Athlone during the filming. The Athlone Town Centre Shopping Centre is now on the site of the old Royal HoeyHotel.
The closed Moate Railway Station, which is now part of the old rail trail greenway, is featured in the movie, as are several parts of the railway line.
The writer/director of ‘The First Great Train Robbery’ was the late Michael Crichton, who went on to create ‘Jurassic Park’ and the hit award-winning television series, ‘ER’.
The movie told the semi-fictional tale of a train robbery in England in the 1850s, although the low walls alongside the featured railway is a giveaway of the movie’s Irish origins.
The 1850s story is about Victorian toff, Edward Pierce (Connery) planning a major train robbery. Lesley-Anne Down played Pierce’s mistress and partner in crime in the robbery. She fondly remembered, while speaking to the Westmeath Independent in 2018, the picture and her time in Ireland and working on the movie in Moate.
“I remember everything about ‘The First Great Train Robbery’ because I was nearly recast, because I was also making a movie called ‘Hanover Street’ with Harrison Ford, and they wanted me to go to Ireland but I had to do a night-shoot,” said Lesley-Anne. “So I finished shooting at 6.30 am, and was on a plane at 9 am, and was tired. Michael Crichton saw me and had a fit. Geoffrey Unsworth the DP, (Director of Photography) was marvellous and so sensitive, and my favourite ever DP, and he was told that I was up all night, and suggested that I be given a rest and allowed to do some shoots the next day.”
The movie is dedicated to the memory of Unsworth, who died shortly after filming ended. In his career, he had won Oscars for the movies ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Tess’.
“The FirstGreat Train Robbery was a lovely shoot to work on, and Michael Crichton was wonderful and he was a very talented and nice man,” said Lesley-Anne. “I do remember the Royal Hoey in Athlone, and we had a very nice suite on the second floor. Moate was a lovely little town, and I remember there were bars hidden away in shops, and there were many, many shops.”
‘The First Great Train Robbery’ was released in 1978 and went on to win the Edgar Allen Poe movie award for Best Motion Picture. When it got its first Irish television screening on RTE 1 in March 1982, ratings soared. It was screened a few weeks later on ITV, and also got a huge audience there.