The Great Train Robbery

1903 WesternCrime 12 minutes Directed by Edwin S. Porter

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About The Great Train Robbery

Two bandits break into a railroad telegraph office, force the operator to stop a train, and have the engineer fill the tender. They kill the fireman, blow the express car with dynamite, put the passengers off, shoot one, and leave in the locomotive. The operator's daughter revives him. After a dance-hall bit, he raises a posse. The posse chases the gang through the mountains, kills them, and takes back the mail. A separate shot, which could open or close the film, shows the outlaw leader firing into the camera.

Cast & crew

More about The Great Train Robbery

Edwin S. Porter wrote and directed it for the Edison Manufacturing Company. The negative is 740 feet (230 meters), about 12 minutes at 18 frames a second. Wikidata dates are 1 December 1903 and 7 December 1903. A promotional leaflet numbers fourteen scenes, with the gunshot close-up as scene 14, "Realism." Justus D. Barnes is the outlaw leader who fires at the lens. G. M. Anderson plays the murdered passenger, the dancing tenderfoot, and one of the robbers. Walter Cameron plays the sheriff. Locations include Essex County Park, the Lackawanna line, and the stream crossing at Thistle Mill Ford in the South Mountain Reservation.

Themes

  • a train holdup
  • a posse
  • a shot fired at the audience
  • telegraph office
  • dynamite
  • express car
  • posse
  • Justus D. Barnes
  • New Jersey

Look

Porter cuts the holdup, the chase through the hills, and the dance hall into one numbered sequence. The last advertised shot is Barnes, life-size, firing at the camera.

Technique

The gunshot close-up is a separate shot, not a scene inside the robbery, and was sold so that it could be spliced at either end.

Preservation

Selected for the National Film Registry in 1990. The Library of Congress holds a paper print of the 1903 copyright deposit and a digital copy timed at 13 minutes 27 seconds. Some surviving prints are hand-colored.

Notes

  • The Barnes close-up is not part of the story. Exhibitors could put it first or last.
  • Lubin issued a shot-for-shot copy in 1904. Porter's own parody, The Little Train Robbery, came in 1905.
  • Sources named for the story include Scott Marble's 1896 play, the 1900 robbery associated with Butch Cassidy, and British chase films such as A Daring Daylight Burglary.
  • A Library of Congress digital copy runs 13 minutes 27 seconds. A 1903 paper print of a rough cut also survives there.
  • The Internet Archive identifier is TheGreatTrainRobbery_555.

Scenes

  • The bandits dynamite the express car and shoot a passenger on the ground.
  • Barnes, in a shot that can open or close the reel, fires his revolver into the lens.
  • The posse kills the gang in the hills and takes the mail back.

Influenced by

  • Scott Marble's 1896 play The Great Train Robbery
  • British chase films, including A Daring Daylight Burglary

Influenced

  • The Little Train Robbery (1905)

Also available

  • Internet Archive (TheGreatTrainRobbery_555)
  • Wikimedia Commons (The Great Train Robbery (1903) - yt.webm)

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