...Because people with low blood sugar make bad decisions. It's what they do. First the robbers go in guns drawn but faces NOT covered, to deal with the depot office boy. He does seem bored at their presence. But then they hit him over the head and tie him with the world's skinniest rope. It seems like they are getting a train schedule from him and don't seem worried he can identify them. At this point the clock on the depot wall reads fifteen minutes until noon. That's why I say the robbers should have eaten lunch first. The clock reads the same time when the employee is found after the robbery. I doubt he lay there for exactly 24 hours.
Then the robbers board the train. This time, when they deal with the man in the baggage compartment, the robbers do have their faces covered. This baggage fellow must be the same one in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because he locks up the money - it's not HIS money - and shoots it out with the robbers and is killed. And what is it with that open door on the compartment? If money just fell off the train he could have been fired! But instead he has been fired at and has died.
Next the robbers take control of the locomotive and stop the train. I see the point of this, as you don't want to jump off of a moving train. But then they rob the passengers. There seem to be about 100 passengers and only four robbers. Now really. This is the old west or at least the old pseudo west. Is it worth it to pick up whatever change is in the passengers' pockets when you already have bags of money to chance such odds? Especially in the days when both men and women often carried concealed guns and might take a shot at you?
But the robbers take off unharmed to horses they left nearby. Someone fetches the Union Army - who I guess have had nothing to do since the end of the Civil War but participate in square dances such as the one shown - and the pursuit is on. Either they have the Lone Ranger to look on the ground and say which way the horses went, or the Union Army gets extremely lucky and catches up with the bandits. I'm sure the local sheriff was upset to be left out of this posse. And such has been the tug of war between local and federal government ever since.
Now I realize I am doing this early film an injustice by poking fun of it so, but the real fun is in the watching of this early attempt at film narrative. Up to this point films were actualities - either actual events such as a fire or the tearing down of a building, or reenactments of short historical events such as the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots. This was made by the Edison company, which ironically lost out in the competition of filmmakers as movies became longer and more sophisticated.
Then the robbers board the train. This time, when they deal with the man in the baggage compartment, the robbers do have their faces covered. This baggage fellow must be the same one in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because he locks up the money - it's not HIS money - and shoots it out with the robbers and is killed. And what is it with that open door on the compartment? If money just fell off the train he could have been fired! But instead he has been fired at and has died.
Next the robbers take control of the locomotive and stop the train. I see the point of this, as you don't want to jump off of a moving train. But then they rob the passengers. There seem to be about 100 passengers and only four robbers. Now really. This is the old west or at least the old pseudo west. Is it worth it to pick up whatever change is in the passengers' pockets when you already have bags of money to chance such odds? Especially in the days when both men and women often carried concealed guns and might take a shot at you?
But the robbers take off unharmed to horses they left nearby. Someone fetches the Union Army - who I guess have had nothing to do since the end of the Civil War but participate in square dances such as the one shown - and the pursuit is on. Either they have the Lone Ranger to look on the ground and say which way the horses went, or the Union Army gets extremely lucky and catches up with the bandits. I'm sure the local sheriff was upset to be left out of this posse. And such has been the tug of war between local and federal government ever since.
Now I realize I am doing this early film an injustice by poking fun of it so, but the real fun is in the watching of this early attempt at film narrative. Up to this point films were actualities - either actual events such as a fire or the tearing down of a building, or reenactments of short historical events such as the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots. This was made by the Edison company, which ironically lost out in the competition of filmmakers as movies became longer and more sophisticated.