Zeus

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

• Director
  • Edwin S. Porter
• Writers
  • Scott Marble
  • Edwin S. Porter
• Stars
  • Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson
  • A.C. Abadie
  • George Barnes

  Director Edwin S. Porter made film history when he completed the 13 sequences for the 12-minute The Great Train Robbery, released in 1903 but based on an 1896 story by Scott Marble. Featuring the first parallel development of separate, simultaneous scenes, and the first close-up (of an outlaw firing off a shot right at the audience), The Great Train Robbery is among the earliest narrative films with a "Western" setting. The opening scenes show the outlaws holding up the passengers and robbing the mail car in the train, before escaping on horseback. After being knocked out by the bandits, the telegraph operator regains consciousness and heads to the dance hall to get a posse together. The posse takes off to hunt down the outlaws and the chase is on.