In 1903, an employee of Thomas Edison's motion picture company produced a movie with a story. It was called "The Great TrainRobbery." It told a simple story of a group of western criminals who steal money from a train. Later they are killed by a group of police in a gun fight. The movie was extremely popular. "The Great TrainRobbery" started the huge motion picture industry.
The Great Train Robbery was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter - a former Thomas Edison cameraman. It was a primitive one-reeler action picture, about 10 minutes long, with 14-scenes, filmed in November 1903 - not in the western expanse of Wyoming but on the East Coast in various locales in New Jersey (at Edison's New York studio, at Essex County Park in New Jersey, and along the Lackawanna railroad).
The precursor to the western film genre was based on an 1896 story by Scott Marble. The film's title was also the same as a popular contemporary stage melodrama. It was the most popular and commercially successful film of the pre-nickelodeon era, and established the notion that film could be a commercially-viable medium.
The film was originally advertised as "a faithful duplication of the genuine 'Hold Ups' made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West." The plot was inspired by a true event that occurred on August 29, 1900, when four members of George Leroy Parker's (Butch Cassidy) 'Hole in the Wall' gang halted the No. 3 train on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks toward Table Rock, Wyoming. The bandits forced the conductor to uncouple the passenger cars from the rest of the train and then blew up the safe in the mail car to escape with about $5,000 in cash.
The film used a number of innovative techniques, many of them for the first time, including parallel editing, minor camera movement, location shooting and less stage-bound camera placement. Jump-cuts or cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique, showing two separate lines of action or events happening continuously at identical times but in different places. The film is intercut from the bandits beating up the telegraph operator (scene one) to the operator's daughter discovering her father (scene ten), to the operator's recruitment of a dance hall posse (scene eleven), to the bandits being pursued (scene twelve), and splitting up the booty and having a final shoot-out (scene thirteen).
The film also employed the first pan shots (in scenes eight and nine), and the use of an ellipsis (in scene eleven). Rather than follow the telegraph operator to the dance, the film cut directly to the dance where the telegraph operator enters. It was also the first film in which gunshots forced someone to dance (in scene eleven) - an oft-repeated, cliched action in many westerns. And the spectacle of the fireman (replaced by a dummy with a jump cut in scene four) being thrown off the moving train was a first in screen history.
In the film's fourteen scenes, a narrative story with multiple plot lines was told - with elements that were copied repeatedly afterwards by future westerns - of a train holdup with six-shooters, a daring robbery accompanied by violence and death, a hastily-assembled posse's chase on horseback after the fleeing bandits, and the apprehension of the desperadoes after a showdown in the woods. The steam locomotive always provided a point of reference from different filming perspectives. The first cowboy star, Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson played several roles: a bandit, a wounded passenger, and a tenderfoot dancer.
In Filmcollectief we got this movie for transferring and we were so excited that we have put an music-track under it because silent movie is so really silent. Allthough we had a perfect 16mm version, the copy-proces from 35mm to 16mm was not done very well. Anyway, the movie is over 100 years old.
Director: Edwin S. Porter
Producer: Thomas Edison
Production Company: Thomas Edison
Audio/Visual: music-track added later, black & white
Language: only music-track
Source: archive.org
Run time: 9:39
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The Great Train Robbery was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter - a former Thomas Edison cameraman. It was a primitive one-reeler action picture, about 10 minutes long, with 14-scenes, filmed in November 1903 - not in the western expanse of Wyoming but on the East Coast in various locales in New Jersey (at Edison's New York studio, at Essex County Park in New Jersey, and along the Lackawanna railroad).
The precursor to the western film genre was based on an 1896 story by Scott Marble. The film's title was also the same as a popular contemporary stage melodrama. It was the most popular and commercially successful film of the pre-nickelodeon era, and established the notion that film could be a commercially-viable medium.
The film was originally advertised as "a faithful duplication of the genuine 'Hold Ups' made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West." The plot was inspired by a true event that occurred on August 29, 1900, when four members of George Leroy Parker's (Butch Cassidy) 'Hole in the Wall' gang halted the No. 3 train on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks toward Table Rock, Wyoming. The bandits forced the conductor to uncouple the passenger cars from the rest of the train and then blew up the safe in the mail car to escape with about $5,000 in cash.
The film used a number of innovative techniques, many of them for the first time, including parallel editing, minor camera movement, location shooting and less stage-bound camera placement. Jump-cuts or cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique, showing two separate lines of action or events happening continuously at identical times but in different places. The film is intercut from the bandits beating up the telegraph operator (scene one) to the operator's daughter discovering her father (scene ten), to the operator's recruitment of a dance hall posse (scene eleven), to the bandits being pursued (scene twelve), and splitting up the booty and having a final shoot-out (scene thirteen).
The film also employed the first pan shots (in scenes eight and nine), and the use of an ellipsis (in scene eleven). Rather than follow the telegraph operator to the dance, the film cut directly to the dance where the telegraph operator enters. It was also the first film in which gunshots forced someone to dance (in scene eleven) - an oft-repeated, cliched action in many westerns. And the spectacle of the fireman (replaced by a dummy with a jump cut in scene four) being thrown off the moving train was a first in screen history.
In the film's fourteen scenes, a narrative story with multiple plot lines was told - with elements that were copied repeatedly afterwards by future westerns - of a train holdup with six-shooters, a daring robbery accompanied by violence and death, a hastily-assembled posse's chase on horseback after the fleeing bandits, and the apprehension of the desperadoes after a showdown in the woods. The steam locomotive always provided a point of reference from different filming perspectives. The first cowboy star, Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson played several roles: a bandit, a wounded passenger, and a tenderfoot dancer.
In Filmcollectief we got this movie for transferring and we were so excited that we have put an music-track under it because silent movie is so really silent. Allthough we had a perfect 16mm version, the copy-proces from 35mm to 16mm was not done very well. Anyway, the movie is over 100 years old.
Director: Edwin S. Porter
Producer: Thomas Edison
Production Company: Thomas Edison
Audio/Visual: music-track added later, black & white
Language: only music-track
Source: archive.org
Run time: 9:39
Great Train Robbery - 100th Anniversay DVD
Starring: Morgan Jones, Tom London Director: Edwin S. Porter
The DVD features four silent westerns (all classics) with excellent picture quality and suitable accompanying music with orchestra.
Tumbleweeds is the 1939 reissue and has W S HART speaking of his love of the west.
Battle of Elderbush Gulch is an exciting story by D W Griffith.
Heart of Texas Ryan stars Tom Mix.
Two versions of the title film are included.
All the films have short intros, history and bios.
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating
• Studio: Vci Video
• DVD Release Date: December 16, 2003
• Run Time: 184 minutes
Starring: Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland Director: Michael Crichton
In Victorian England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.
• Plot Synopsis: Sutherland and Connery wish to rob a moving train's safe in Victorian England. They need wax impressions of keys, coffins, dead cats, and a great deal of planning in order to pull it off.
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: July 29, 1998
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: based on 25 reviews. (Write a review.)
• DVD Features:
• Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 1.0), Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Commentary by: director/writer 'Michael Crichton' (qv)Dolby Digital 1.0
• Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1
• 8-page booklet with trivia, production notes and a revealing look at the making of the movie
DVD
(1979)"The Great Train Robbery"
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