The Great Train Robbery

     In The Great Train Robbery the story begins when two robbers enter a telegraph office and force the man working there to send a message to the train to stop to take on more water. After the train takes on more water and prepares to continue on its journey the robbers sneak on to the train and hide. As the two robbers enter the mail car a messenger opens fire on the robbers, however he is killed and the robbers blow open the treasure box and take the contents. Next the robbers move to the front of the train where they have a battle with a man on the coal tender while the train is moving. After the robbers succeed in stoping the train they have the engineer uncouple the locomotive from the rest of the cars. Then they force all of the passengers on the train to move out side where they take all of their valuable possessions and shoot one man who tries to escape. After obtaining all valuables the robbers board the locomotive and ride away from the scene of the crime into the mountains where they had horses waiting. After the telegraph operator is freed he alerts people to the tragedy that had happened. This results in people getting guns and chasing after the robbers. Finally a gun battle occurs between the outlaws and the people who are chasing after them where all of the outlaws are killed. The movie ends with the leader of the outlaws firing his gun at the audience.

     Filmed in 1903 The Great Train Robbery was an innovative movie for its time. The movie utilized many editing technics and special effects that were revolutionary for the time.  Some things like panning camera movement and jump cuts were used in this film. This was one of the first time such technics were ever used. Up to this point it had been unthinkable to move the camera while filming so as a result this was an incredible breakthrough for cinematography. An example of a special effect was, when they use a jump cut to transition from the actor to the stuffed dummy during the fight on the coal car; this would be considered to be a highly sophisticated special effect that would wow audiences who viewed the film.