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  2. Old No. 587: The Great Train Robbery: Directed by Dan T. Hall. With Ran Burns, Nick Abeel, Ariadne Baker-Dunn, Roger Schmelzer. A group of children try to save an old steam locomotive from the scrap yard with the help of the engine's driver and his dog.

    • (926)
    • Family, Comedy, Drama
    • Dan T. Hall
    • 2000-08-16
    • Overview
    • Production notes and credits
    • Cast

    The Great Train Robbery, American silent western film, released in 1903, that is historically significant for its innovative approach to film editing and narration. The Great Train Robbery is acknowledged as the first narrative film to successfully establish continuity of action (the process of combining related, but noncontinuous, shots into a cohesive sequence). The film’s simple story follows four bandits who stage a train robbery and are eventually tracked down and defeated by a local posse. It is one of the earliest American silent films to survive, and it is considered an essential film classic.

    The Great Train Robbery was directed by American filmmaker Edwin S. Porter, a pioneering director whose innovative use of cross-cutting (cutting between two or more shots to show simultaneous action), location shooting, and close-ups revolutionized filmmaking. He worked as a director and camera operator on several early Edison-produced films, including Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901) and The Finish of Bridget McKeen (1901). The Great Train Robbery was written by Porter and American playwright Scott Marble and was partially based on Marble’s play of the same name. It was filmed in November 1903 at Edison’s New York City studio and at outdoor locations in Essex county parks in New Jersey and along the Lackawanna Railroad, likely between Denville and Dover, New Jersey. It had a budget of $150 (which is roughly equivalent to $5,100 in 2023).

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    The film’s story is simple yet compelling. Two bandits force a telegraph operator to order a train to stop, before they knock him unconscious and tie him up. When the train stops, the group of bandits, now numbering four, slips aboard; two of them enter a mail car, kill the mail car’s messenger, and use an explosive to open a strongbox containing valuables. In the meantime, the two other bandits attempt to overtake the train’s engineer and fireman. A dramatic fight ensues between one of the bandits and the fireman, who is knocked senseless and thrown from the moving train. The bandits order the engineer to stop the train, and then the passengers are lined up and robbed at gunpoint. One passenger attempts to run away and is shot. The bandits steal the locomotive, drive it down the railroad line, abandon the locomotive, and flee on horseback with their loot. Assisted by his daughter, the telegraph operator awakens and staggers into a busy saloon to tell the locals about the robbery, and a posse is quickly formed. The posse eventually tracks down the bandits and shoots them all dead. The film ends with a startling close-up of American actor Justus D. Barnes, who fires his pistol repeatedly while facing the audience.

    The establishment of temporal continuity was problematic in early silent films, and The Great Train Robbery is acknowledged to be the first narrative film to have achieved such continuity of action. Using 14 separate noncontinuous shots, Porter shows the robbery, the formation of the posse, and the pursuit of the robbers—a dramatic departure from the frontally composed, theatrical staging used by French filmmaker Georges Méliès and other contemporaries. The film is also notable for its use of outdoor locations, which made filming challenging because of the handling and maneuvering of large cameras and other equipment, and its expansive cast of players. Porter’s use of cross-cutting, panning shots, and the close-up at the film’s conclusion was not new; however, The Great Train Robbery was the first film to use these techniques in a single motion picture.

    •Studio: Edison Manufacturing Company

    •Director: Edwin S. Porter

    •Producer: Thomas Edison

    •Writers: Edwin S. Porter and Scott Marble

    •Gilbert M. (“Bronco Billy”) Anderson (bandit)

    •A.C. Abadie (sheriff)

    •Justus D. Barnes (bandit)

    •Walter Cameron (sheriff)

    •John Manus Dougherty, Sr. (bandit)

    •Frank Hanaway (bandit)

  3. 8 August 2023, and the 60th anniversary of the crime that shocked the nation: the Great Train Robbery. Gradually the truth emerges. Judging by press accounts, the robbers were a kind of ‘Robin Hood’ gang. The first arrest took place less than 48 after the crime was committed.

  4. The Great Train Robbery was the robbery of £2.61 million [2] (calculated to present-day value of £69 million - or $73,547,750) from a Royal Mail train travelling from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line in the early hours of 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.

  5. Dec 3, 2013 · When The Great Train Robbery debuted in December of 1903, Henry Ford had recently sold his first car, the Boston Americans had just won the first modern World Series, and Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States. Filmmaking was in its infancy.

  6. The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American silent film made by Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Manufacturing Company. It follows a gang of outlaws who hold up and rob a steam train at a station in the American West, flee across mountainous terrain, and are finally defeated by a posse of locals.

  7. Oct 10, 2024 · The movie is based on the infamous Great Train Robbery that occurred on August 8, 1963, in England. A gang of criminals known as the “The Firm” carried out the audacious heist, making off with £2.6 million (equivalent to £53 million today).

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