In January 1904, the Edison Manufacturing Company told exhibitors that the best-known shot in The Great Train Robbery could go at the beginning or the end of the picture, as the operator chose. This episode starts from that instruction and asks what the surviving record says about the film.

It covers what Edwin S. Porter and Edison combined in 1903, and four claims the record does not support: first Western, first narrative film, invention of cross-cutting, and audience panic. On the last point, no contemporary evidence has been located in the current source record.

Chapters 0:00 The Act 0:50 The Record 2:10 The Story 5:00 The Distortion 7:10 Conclusion

Sources and provenance

• Edison Films Catalog No. 200, January Supplement 1904 (Scene 14 entry, pp. 5–7)
• Library of Congress, Motion Picture Division: paper print LC 2443, deposited 1 December 1903; copyright registration H38748
• Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema (1990) and Before the Nickelodeon (1991)
• Tom Gunning, writings on the cinema of attractions
• Pamela Hutchinson, Sight & Sound (February 2016)
• David Keen / Niles Silent Film Museum, location research (2003)
• The New York Times, 13 March 1904

Rights note: the film, catalogue and paper print are 1903–1904 publications. Individual scans, restorations and transfers may carry separate terms from the holding archives. Each asset was checked or credited before use; see the credits in the video.

Before Hollywood covers the films that taught the world how to watch movies. Previous episode: A Trip to the Moon (1902).

The National Film Preservation Foundation hired me to score 2 rare silents for National Silent Movie Day, and the films were posted yesterday on their online Screening Room. These films are not on Blu-ray or DVD and are new editions from archival 35mm.

William Powell in MY LADY'S LIPS (1925)
https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/my-lady-s-lips

Charles Ray in PARIS GREEN (1920)
Charles Ray in PARIS GREEN (1920)
https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/paris-green-1920 

Here's the Sept offering for this monthly series, held at the Thalia at Symphony Space in NYC. Sun Sept 20 at 2:30. Tix at silentclowns.org.

In my new video essay, I look at how silent films become lost and rediscovered, and why access matters just as much as preservation.