# The Great Train Robbery

Filmed in November 1903 at Edison's New York studio, at Essex County Park in New Jersey, and along the Lackawanna railroad and released in December 1903, "The Great Train Robbery" is considered to be one of the first significant early US narrative films. Greatly influenced by the British film "Daring Daylight Robbery" (1903) it introduced many new cinematic techniques (cross cutting, double exposure, camera movement and location shooting) to American audiences. It was directed by Edwin S Porter and stars Justus D. Barnes as the head bandit, G. M. Anderson as a slain passenger and a robber, Walter Cameron as the sheriff. From the Edison Film Catalogue 1904: This sensational and highly tragic subject will certainly make a decided `hit' whenever shown. In every respect we consider it absolutely the superior of any moving picture ever made. It has been posed and acted in faithful duplication of the genuine `Hold Ups' made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West, and only recently the East has been shocked by several crimes of the frontier order, which fact will increase the popular interest in this great Headline Attraction. Scene 1 - Interior of railroad telegraph office. Two masked robbers enter and compel the operator to set the `signal block' to stop the approaching train, also making him write an order to the engineer to take water at this station.... Scene 2 - At the railroad water tank. The bandit band are seen hiding behind the tank as a train stops to take water…

- Kind: Short
- Year: 1903
- Runtime: 12 min
- By: Edwin S Porter
- Genres: Silent
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/TheGreatTrainRobbery_555)
- Licence or status: [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) (as the archive states it)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/TheGreatTrainRobbery_555?play=1)