Across the Great Divide
About Across the Great Divide
Bob Carson leaves his New England village, and his fiancée Mary Sanderson, to try his luck in the West. Months later he is a railroad telegrapher in Chicago and still short of money. A bandit and his partner are planning a train robbery. The bandit puts a gun on Bob and orders him to send a message that will crash one train into another, so the gang can rob in the confusion.
Cast & crew
More about Across the Great Divide
Edward C. Taylor directed and wrote the scenario from Charles A. Taylor's story With Clear Rights. George A. Wright plays Bob, Bessie Learn plays Mary, and Frank McGlynn Sr. plays the bandit. Edison produced the one-reel short, about 300 meters. General Film Company released it in the United States on September 4, 1915.
Themes
Making
Taylor keeps the western label for a telegraph office. The threat is a written train order, not a chase: one false message and two trains meet.
Preservation
A print is in the collection of the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.
Notes
- The Italian Wikipedia credits the source story as With Clear Rights, by Charles A. Taylor.
- An Eye Filmmuseum print runs about twelve minutes with its present titles.
- McGlynn plays the man with the gun. The accomplice is not named in the published synopses.
Scenes
- The bandit aims at the telegrapher and orders the message that will put one train into another.
Influenced by
- With Clear Rights, a story by Charles A. Taylor
