The film usually credited with proving movies could tell a real story.
Four bandits hold up a railroad telegraph office, board the train, rob
the mail car, and escape across the New Jersey countryside with a posse
in pursuit — all in about twelve minutes. Edwin S. Porter made it for
Edison's studio in 1903, cutting between the telegraph office, the
train, and the chase in a way audiences had never seen. Its most famous
image is a close-up of a bandit (Justus D. Barnes) firing his revolver
point-blank at the camera, a shot exhibitors could place at the start or
the end of the reel. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1990. As
a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United
States.
Western · Crime · Silent
