"The Great K & A Train Robbery" is an action packed Tom Mix western in which he plays a special agent Tom Gordon called in to help railroad president Eugene Cullen (William Walling solve the hold-ups of his railway. Tom arrives but unknown to Cullen, is working undercover as a masked bandit in order to study the railroad gang's movements. Cullen's daughter Madge (Dorothy Dean) is on her way home when gang leader Bill Tolfree (Edward Piel Sr.) decides that the kidnapping of Madge would yield a large ransom payment.Tom, who had been listening in hiding to the gang's plans, rescues Madge and escapes the gang's clutches. Madge becomes attracted to the devil may care bandit while Cullen's secretary Burton Holt (Carl Miller) looks on jealously. Holt, it turns out is a snake in the grass, informing the gang of upcoming bank shipments.While escaping from Cullen's private train, Tom meets hobo Deluxe Harry (Harry Grippe) riding beneath the private railway car. It turns out that Harry had served under Tom in another life. To make a long story short, Harry overhears Holt telling Tolfree of the railway's plans to move the shipment of gold bonds from the original train to Cullen's private train.Using a pull car, Harry races to inform Tom of Holt's deceit. Tom manages to foil the robbery and gives the box containing the bonds to Harry for safekeeping. However Holt shoots Harry down and takes the box and flees. It turns out that the gang has a secret underwater cave hideout. Tom follows Holt to the hideout and..................................................................In this action packed film, we are treated to many spectacular stunts. Mix is supposed to have performed them but I can't see the studio allowing him perform the most dangerous ones. The stunts involving sliding down a rope or crossing a ravine are shown in long shots where you cannot see the faces. The hard ridin' was probably done by Mix and his horse Tony.Plenty of gunplay (although I don't remember anyone getting killed), ridin' , ropin'and fisticuiffs to satisfy all of Mix's fans. You have to laugh when Mix first enters the bandit's hideout by swimming underwater, and comes up in the cave with his hat on.The character of "Snowball" (Curtis McHenry) is typical of the movie industry's portrayal of African-Americans during this period. He is used as comedy relief in a low and demeaning manner. Pity.

. . . to focus on THE GREAT K & A TRAIN ROBBERY's Racism, Sexism, poor continuity, implausible plot, or clumsy acting. There's a saying that crops up in nearly every discussion of American Film: When in Doubt, Blame John Wayne. Before he kicked his bucket, Marion--as he was known in his K&A Days--apparently told this site (or its forerunner) that he was an "extra" among the cast for this Tom Mix vehicle. If so, his Face Time here would make most of Brit Director Alfred Hitchcock's famed but extremely fleeting cameo appearances look like featured roles by way of comparison with Marion's "work" in this flick and the rest of his first 20 or 30 claimed "parts." A VHS release from the 1900s for another alleged entry in Marion's filmography called THE DROP-KICK actually highlighted his literal face-in-the-crowd "role," which lasted approximately nine-tenths of one second. Though the box for that tape gave Marion equal billing with DROP-KICK's principle players, the case for K&A's 2003 Grapevine DVD release states that K&A was released in 1924, when 17-year-old Marion was still moping around in high school over his parent's ahead-of-their-time divorce, rather than in 1926, when a 19-year-old Marion had just dropped out of college due to what forensic psychologists have concluded was some sort of a male-on-male sexual assault by an unknown number of his college football teammates. (Only 2% of such incidents came to the attention of the not-always-sympathetic Authorities during the 1920s, and this small fraction that WAS reported nearly always involved one or more fatalities.) In other words, the Grapevine people are trying to avoid connecting this film with the sordid details of Marion's deflowering by NOT mentioning him at all, and purposely back-dating K&A's release to a year when Marion could NOT have been involved in it (which means that Grapevine might back-date its upcoming "public domain" release of GONE WITH THE WIND to 1858--BEFORE the novel was written, the battles were fought, Atlanta was burned, or movies were invented--if it felt a Politically Correct Need to do so).

Great K&A Train Robbery, The (1926) *** 1/2 (out of 4) The K&A Train Company are being robbed left and right so the president hires a detective but he thinks the guy has chickened out. It turns out that the detective (Tom Mix) is actually on the case but hiding his identity because he knows that it's the president's secretary who is tipping off the bad guys. Now the detective must try and not only stop the bad guys but find a way to make sure the latest gold delivery gets to the bank. If you've ever seen a movie serial then you know the final three or four minutes is where the film really comes to life as the action picks up and it leads to a tense cliffhanger. That's pretty much what this film is as it runs just over an hour and for the most part it's just one action packed scene right after another and I couldn't help but think of the final minutes of a serial but here those exciting final minutes lasts the entire running time. It's easy to see why this movie was so popular back in the day because it features Mix doing everything he was loved for and at a pace probably a lot faster than most people had ever witnessed. Many reviewers mention how fast this movie is and it is rather amazing to see how much they packed into such a short time. The opening sequence runs twenty-minutes as the train is on the way, the robbery are set up and ready to go and then we see Mix who is hanging off a cliff waiting for his time to shine. This sequence runs twenty-minutes and features a build-up, the action and then the pay off. This is a tremendous sequence that contains so much action and drama that the middle portion of the film somewhat feels slow in comparison and yet it's still ten times faster than your typical Western. This earliest sequence certainly makes the film one of the most memorable Westerns of the silent era. There's a stunt where Mix (probably his double) goes from one cliff and has to ride down the rope to a horse waiting on the ground. This looks incredible and is just one example of why stunts in the silents were so dangerous but at the same so amazing to watch. Mix, needless to say, fits the role of the good cowboy without any problems and delivers another winning performance. Tony, his horse, is also in good form and gets to do a couple stunts himself. Dorothy Dwan plays the love interest, Will Walling her father and Carl Miller plays the snake informant. Apparently a young John Wayne is also in the cast but I couldn't spot him. THE GREAT K&A TRAIN ROBBERY was legendary in its day but it seems to have been forgotten by many today, which is a real shame because silent fans will certainly eat this up but the thing is so fast and action-packed that I can't help but think many others would get a kick out of it.

For those interested in American silent movie history, this film provides a rare look into movies as popular culture. Sadly, 95% of all silent fims made, have been lost through nitrate decomposition or outright destruction. This film made in 1926, is a rare survivor of the cowboy genre targeted for a youth audience. The plot to say the least is simplistic. But it was loaded wonderful stunts, constant action and spectacular scenery. Tom Mix was a hugh boxoffice draw, and as well know then, as was Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, or Mary Pickford. If you're curious to see a film that might well have thrilled your great grandfather and great grandmother when they were kids, check out *The Great A&K*.