From Leadville to Aspen: A Hold-Up in the Rockies
About From Leadville to Aspen: A Hold-Up in the Rockies
Two bandits pile logs on the track of a train billed as running from Leadville, Colorado, to Aspen, and the engineer stops. They rob the passengers at gunpoint, then leave on a handcar. They switch to a horse and wagon on a road beside the rails. The train races them, and they are taken at a crossing.
Cast & crew
More about From Leadville to Aspen: A Hold-Up in the Rockies
Wallace McCutcheon and Frank J. Marion directed for American Mutoscope and Biograph. G. W. Bitzer photographed it. The company shot outdoors in Phoenicia, New York, on the Ulster and Delaware Railroad on 4–6 April 1906, and staged the car interior at the Biograph studio. Copyright H75633 is dated 12 April 1906. The release was 30 June 1906, at 569 feet. It was made for Hale's Tours, whose audiences sat in a fake railway carriage.
Themes
Background
George C. Hale's Tours, opened in 1904, put phantom-ride films inside a rocking carriage. This short was built for that show.
Making
Colorado is only the title. The mountain run is the Catskills, and the robbery inside the car is a studio set.
Look
G. W. Bitzer shot the exterior as a ride along the Ulster and Delaware, then the hold-up inside a studio car.
Music
Silent. Hale's Tours added mechanical sound effects in the carriage.
Preservation
Prints are at the George Eastman Museum. The National Film Preservation Foundation included the film on the DVD set More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894–1931.
Notes
- Most Hale's Tours films were scenic rides. This one adds a staged hold-up. Sound effects were added in the theatre car.
- A Biograph bulletin said it ran five weeks at the Brady-Grossman office, 46 East 14th Street, New York.
- Silent Era records 35mm and 16mm prints at the George Eastman Museum.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States.
- Kemp Niver reprinted the Biograph bulletin in Biograph Bulletins (1971).
Scenes
- The bandits drop logs on the rails and board after the engineer stops.
- They leave on a handcar, then a horse and wagon, while the train runs beside them.
- They are caught at the crossing.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-from-leadville-to-aspen-a-hold-up-in-the-rockies)
- More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894–1931 (National Film Preservation Foundation DVD)
