The Great Train Robbery

 



Original Movie Poster

The Great Train Robbery is a 14-scene, one reel classic, western movie filmed in 1903.  It was the first silent movie that presented an action narrative story.  It depicts a group of outlaws who take over a train and rob the passengers on board of all their valuables.  The opening scene begins with the clerk at the train station being assaulted and tied up by two bandits.  The two bandits then meet up with two more bandits where they wait for the train to stop to ambush it.  The audience is left with anticipation as they wait to see what happens next.  When the train stops, two of the bandits meet up with a crew member, shoot him and use dynamite to open a box of valuables.  In the meantime, the other two bandits work to get rid of the train engineers.  One is beaten profusely and thrown overboard (a dummy was used to protect the actor from injuries) while the other is held at gunpoint.  He is instructed to disconnect the train cars from the locomotive.  The outlaws then release all of the passengers from their train coaches and make them surrender all of their valuables.  One man tries to run to escape but he is shot in the back and left to die.  All the passengers look on in disbelief and shock.  The bandits then take off and escape in the locomotive.  They stop a few miles down the train track and head into the woods where their horses are waiting for them.

The film then cuts back to the unconscious clerk in the train station.  A young girl comes into the room and sees him and tries to wake him up.  Her attempts are futile until she gets a small glass of water and throws it into his face.  He immediately wakes up and the two quickly leave the station to get help.

A group of men and women partying at a bar are informed by the wakened clerk of the train robbery.  They immediately form a posse and head into the woods on horses in pursuit of the bandits.  They come across the robbers and a battle begins.  Guns shots are exchanged and one by one the bandits are killed.

The movie concludes with an unusual scene.  The viewers assume that the film is over when one of the outlaws appears on screen and points his gun directly to the camera and fires several shots.  This gave the audience an element of surprise.

The Great Train Robbery has a lot of elements that people enjoy while watching a film such as action, violence and suspense.   Due to the fact that it is a silent movie, the director used several new editing techniques (traveling to different location settings, cross cutting and camera movement, just to name a few) to help tell the story and make it visually exciting.  The popularity of this film shows that the director achieved that goal making it one of the best classic short films of all times.