Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Friday, December 30, 2011

Great Train Robbery

1903, reported to be the first American movie that told a narrative story and the first action film made in the U.S. It was also the first movie that used location shooting.

This version has music added, so you might want to switch your speakers off.



If you can believe the stories about the movie, at the time, it was regarded as being very violent. Legend has it that people panicked when the outlaw shot his revolver at the camera.

When you see the steam locomotive, note the height of the driving wheels. That was a fast passenger engine.

3 comments:

Nangleator said...

Editing is a bit lax. I'm an animator, so I understand being reluctant to trim your shots... but damn.

I'm actually impressed by the scene where the brave guard locks the money case and throws the key out the door. The car is plainly too wide to be a real train car, yet the scenery out the door looks real. I think this is a case of rear projection, probably used in the first scene, as well.

The deaths were a bit over the top.

Heh, that last guy across the stream and up onto his horse kinda shows why some directors shoot scenes 30 times.

Jeez, the clerk wasn't tapping out Morse on the telegraph, was he? With his face?

Typical Hollywood chase scene... no matter how much of a lead the bad guys get, you see the good guys right behind them as soon as they start the chase.

I like the music. I used to play the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. No need to play it twice, though. Yeah, I know that was probably added in this century.

Thanks for posting!

Eck! said...

The typical music for that was piano or if the theature had an organ that was used.

In some respects the editing for the music track was more amateur. using the fugue was appropriate for some scenes but likely the keyboardist would have mixed it up more for the action and other shots. Whit that said I've seen it before a mix of piano riffs and that always seemed right.

Eck!

Stewart Dean said...

One of the first movies in NYC was shown as a demo in Gimbel's (Macy's?, I forget). It was nothing more the movie camera set up on the ocean waterline pointing out to sea and was only the waves coming towards the camera. The audience panicked (Thinking they would drown) and people were trampled in the rush to "escape". The human perception and culture is endlessly adaptable but a new paradigm can utterly confound and spook it.......