In this parody of 1903's _Great Train Robbery, The (1903)_, also made by <a href=">Edwin S. Porter, young bandits rob the passengers of a kiddie train and are chased by police officers. Seven or eight fellows are sitting around when their boss, a gal, tells them to put on their masks; she brings in a blindfolded man and sends the boys out to do a job. They borrow horses, block a train track, and set up an ambush. They knock out the engineer and rob each passenger, all of whom are dressed in white. The gang escapes in the first car of the train, then they remount their horses and scramble through forest and across a creek. Police pursue on foot. Back at the hideout, the gang split the swag and run from the cops. The gang tries swimming to safety, but the cops have a rowboat. Will any escape? Little Train Robbery, The (1905) <br/><br/>*** (out of 4) <br/><br/>Porter remakes his own The Great Train Robbery but this time kids are playing the leads in a childish tale of acting out a robbery. While this certainly isn't as good as the film its based on it remains cute throughout with some nice stunts and scenery.<br/><br/>Seven Ages, The (1905) <br/><br/>*** (out of 4) <br/><br/>Cute little love story that shows a couple over seven ages in their lives from babies to old folks. There's not too much story here other than the two's love for one another but this comes off quite nicely.<br/><br/>White Caps, The (1905) <br/><br/>*** (out of 4) <br/><br/>Historically interesting film that deals with the vigilante group known as "The White Caps" who were known throughout Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. Like the KKK, this group wore white pillows over their faces but instead of attacking race this group went after those who broke moral issues like beating their wives, harming children and other crimes that make for a bad community. This film shows them going after a man who has just beaten his wife. In spoofing his own hit movie, Edwin S. Porter produces a fairly creative parody that is worth seeing in itself, and that is perhaps even more interesting in historical terms. "The Little Train Robbery" is a re-working of the classic "The Great Train Robbery", with all the characters changed to children, and most of the settings miniaturized accordingly.<br/><br/>The story often parallels the original quite closely, and the more familiar you are with the original, the more similarities you can spot. So this is more than just one of the era's common remakes of the one-shot films that had become popular - it involved a detailed look at the original movie, with many choices as to how closely to follow it. It is certainly one of the most detailed examples of this kind to be found in the first decade or so of cinema history.<br/><br/>There are also times when, in contrast to the original, details are changed to play up the fact that the characters here are all children. As such, it is interesting in terms of the age-old debate as to how far behavior, especially of the young, might be influenced by the movies. Attitudes always change from one era to the next, and not always in the same direction. Attitudes in past eras were not always as simple as we may assume them to have been, and this is the kind of example that provides an interesting perspective on the issue.<br/><br/>Seen simply as a movie, this is not one of the best of its era, but it has some clever features, and it still works well enough. To the audiences of the time, to whom "The Great Train Robbery" would have been one of the very best movies they had ever seen, there would probably have been noticeable interest in this parody version.
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