Board That 1903 Train

The Movie Ride That's Lasted Longest

Made wayyy back in 1903, and it's still good. Like A Trip To The Moon, The Great Train Robbery is an antique you can get out and actually entertain an audience with. It moves fast, has lots of action, and is "quaint" in that way civilians like their silent movie experience to be. Bonus is fact the thing is in color, as in hand-tinted effects from beginning to end. The Great Train Robbery is perfect appetizer for old-timey picture shows, a bite-size ten minutes with every element westerns would use from then on. Teachers ought to play it first day of any film history or appreciation class. Blackhawk had 8/16mm prints and our public library kept one from purchase of a BH lot in 1969. That's when I saw GTR whole for a first time. Prior to that, there were frame captures published in Griffith and Mayer's seminal book, The Movies. Everybody knew this was "The First Movie Ever Made" (twasn't), but I'm willing enough to keep calling it that, as I likes my history simple. So did exhibs from '03 onward when they revived The Great Train Robbery. The shoot-'em-up reel was back and back again whenever time came to dredge dawn of century pic shelves. Edison's antique stayed good for a laff and to show how far we'd progressed.

Just Another Program Western --- But Ennobled By The Title
It Bore --- Note Too The Disclaimer

Sometimes The Great Train Robbery got a mighty push like one accorded in 1939 by New Orleans' Globe Theatre, a 600 seater opened in 1917. Note fact that GTR is featured attraction on the bill, brand-new The Roaring Twenties playing in support. "The First Feature Picture With A Plot" says the Globe's ad, "Presented Exactly As It Was Produced in 1903." Was the '39 audience surprised when The Great Train Robbery began and ended within ten minutes? To further rouse memory, there would come a feature-length Great Train Robbery in 1941, well, 65 minutes anyway, starring Bob Steele, and for Republic Pictures release. A remake? Not according to synopsis at the IMDB, but title choice was clever, and I'll bet a lot of old-timers dropped in for the trip back. As to more of that, 1946 saw '03's train robbed again when the Wake Theatre in Raleigh, N.C. saluted "Good Old Days" for a Sunday-Monday goody bag from Granddad's day. Would '46 patrons come to cheer or jeer? This was well before early silents were accepted as anything other than novelty, so I'd suspect the latter. Toward modern-day access to The Great Train Robbery, there is a 100th Anniversary DVD, along with inclusion in an Edison box from Kino. It's also all over You Tube.