The Great Train Robbery [G]

A group of bandits plan to pull off a great train robbery. It begins in a telegraph office where two bandits force the operator to send a false message to the train so that it will make an unscheduled stop for water. From there the bandits board the train, hold up the passengers, enter the mail car and steal from the safe before making off with the loot on horseback. But when the telegraph operator wakes up, he calls for assistance and the plan is interrupted by a great chase and shootout in the woods. 

Regarded as the first Western, which became a most popular genre in later American cinema, Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery was also a step forward for screenwriters as well as one of the first exhibitions of how the camera could engage and interact with the audience. 

Thirteen minutes of non-stop action and suspense, it’s no wonder that the film remains a significant title in cinematic history. 

A group of bandits plan to pull off a great train robbery. It begins in a telegraph office where two bandits force the operator to send a false message to the train so that it will make an unscheduled stop for water. From there the bandits board the train, hold up the passengers, enter the mail car and steal from the safe before making off with the loot on horseback. But when the telegraph operator wakes up, he calls for assistance and the plan is interrupted by a great chase and shootout in the woods. 

Where previous screenplays such as Melies’ one for A Trip to the Moon was a shopping list of a sequence of events, Porter and Marble’s script for The Great Train Robbery was the first to use descriptive language and indulge a little bit more in the narrative than the block-by-block structure that previous scripts adhered to. As a result the film’s degree of narrative sophistication and its ability to convey everything clearly considering its early date, is very impressive and remains prominent as a progressive turning point in cinematic history. 

For the most part the camera delivers mid-shots of all the action either facing straight ahead or viewing it from an angle. But there is a significant scene at the end, the most iconic in the film that depicts a close-up of a bandit firing point blank at the camera, seemingly at the audience. This shot remains a most significant shot in history as it was the first example of how the camera could be used to include the audience in the film, placing them right in the line of fire. 

Starring A. C. Abadie, Gilbert M. “Bronco Billy” Anderson, George Barnes, Walter Cameron, Frank Hanaway, Morgan Jones, Tom London, Marie Murray, and Mary Snow, The Great Train Robbery sits in age of cinema when the winds of change were blowing. Filled with action, iconic camera shots, violence, and suspense, it’s a good little one to watch, especially if you’re interested in cinematic history.