The Grey Fox

When an aging, but gentlemanly stagecoach robber is released from prison, he decides to go to Canada to become a train robber.
—Kenneth Chisholm



Old West highwayman Bill Miner, known to Pinkertons as "The Gentleman Bandit," is released in 1901 after 33 years in prison, a genial and charming old man. He goes to Washington to live and work with his sister's family. But the world has changed much while he has been away, and he just can't adjust. So he goes to Canada and returns to the only thing familiar to him -- robbery (with stagecoaches changed to trains).
—Ken Yousten



1901. Sixty-seven year old Bill Miner has just been released from San Quentin, where he served thirty-three years for holding up stagecoaches, a career that started when he was sixteen. Although he has every intention of going straight and even gets gainful employment, he, after going to the nickelodeon and watches The Great Train Robbery (1903), believes he's found his next career in the world having changed in those thirty-three years: holding up trains. Much like his life holding up stagecoaches, holding up trains has to be on his own terms, where he will answer to no one. After a few misstarts, he, with some new associates, is able to pull off a lucrative train robbery in the Pacific Northwest. Needing to lay low, he, with one of those associates, Shorty Dunn, Bill, with the help of another former associate, Jack Budd, in setting up a "temporary" life under an assumed name, ends up in Kamloops, British Columbia, leading what is outwardly a respectable life, even befriending Fernie, a police officer. He unexpectedly makes more of a human connection with feminist photographer Katherine Flynn, with who he begins a relationship, which gets to the point of he contemplating settling down with her in this assumed life. What Bill may or may not be aware is that Seavey, a Portland based Pinkerton detective, is hot on his trail which may affect what he decides to do.
—Huggo




SYNOPSIS