The Great Train Robbery / El Gran Robo al Tren (1903)

El Gran Robo al Tren se transformó en el primer western importante y uno de los que lo establecieron como género particular. La estructura narrativa "crimen - persecución - castigo" es el patrón de la mayoría de los films del Oeste que lo siguieron.

La película se estrenó en el Huber's Museum, un vaudeville de clase baja de la calle 14 de Nueva York.
Los dueños del teatro no pensaron que fuera a tener mucha repercusión, pero el público comenzó a gritar "otra vez! Otra vez!" hasta que finalmente se encendieron las luces para que la gente se fuera.

Película completa
Duración: 9 minutos 42 segundos

"The Great Train Robbery" became the first important western and the one that established the western as a unique film genre. Its dramatic, narrative structure of "crime -- pursuit -- retribution" set the pattern for almost all future western films, and its success confirmed for the fledgling movie industry that the rising popularity of the story film was commercially viable despite its increased production costs.

"The Great Train Robbery" had its debut at Huber's Museum, a low--class vaudeville house on 14th Street in New York City. When the film was announced the theater's patrons were indifferent. But, according to G.M. Anderson, when the movie began the audience came alive. "They got up and shouted and yelled, and then when it was all over they yelled, 'Run it again! Run it again!', until [the management] finally put on the lights to chase them out." Within a week it was booked into eleven theaters in and around New York City, including the prestigious Hammerstein's Theatre at 42nd and Broadway, where it received a "rousing, rousing reception".