One man's quest to watch the top 1001 movies of all time.

Sunday 4 December 2011

The Great Train - OK I Have No Idea About What's Going On

Film:  The Great Train Robbery
Year: 1903
Where I Saw It: DVD

My friend The Projectionist gave me a call again this week.  He had found another film I was looking for.  This one was a Western and arguably the first one ever made.  Again, if your not a fan of the genre still check it out.  Even though it's a three parter, it still clocks in at just under fifteen minutes.  It's neat to see how with such a short amount of time and no sound, a story (well, most of it) can still be told through film.  It's also worth noting that at the beginning of the film (or end depending what version you find) there's a short scene where one of the gunfighters points his gun towards the audience and fires.  This was one of the first attempts to make the audience really feel like they were part of the movie.

Having no sound though does have it's drawbacks.  With everyone wearing cowboy hats and the film being in black and white, it's very hard to tell who's who.  Some of the plot points are hard to follow as well.  At one point, the telegraph operator seems to die for no real reason and at another point you see a group of people dancing right after the train robbery and you're left wondering if they are the robbers celebrating or are these people really happy that their train was hijacked.  Turns out it was neither of those options.

The people dancing were the pose hired to kill the robbers and this is where it gets really confusing.  You have no idea who is fighting who.  There's one scene where it looks like the pose is shooting themselves and another scene where everyone is falling down and then the movie ends.  It's very confusing.

One Last Point - This Western was entirely filmed just outside of New Jersey.  I don't know why I find that so funny but I do.

Thanks for reading! - Scott Scene

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