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Royal Train (1896) Online

Royal Train (1896) Online
1896 Robert W. Paul
Original Title :
Royal Train
Genre :
Movie / Documentary / Short
Year :
1896
Directror :
Robert W. Paul
Type :
Movie
Time :
1min
Rating :
4.8/10

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Royal Train (1896) Online

The insignia visible on the train identifies it as Queen Victoria's own personal conveyance, and the presence of the monarch (or at least a very senior member of the Royal Family) is suggested by the large crowds that have gathered to witness its arrival, as well as the formal police guard of honor. If this was indeed taken in 1896, this would make Royal Train one of the oldest films depicting the British monarchy, albeit on this occasion from a discreet distance. The following year, Paul would shoot the celebrations for Victoria's Diamond Jubilee from a great many vantage points.

This film only survives as a fragment, and is hard to identify with any certainty as it doesn't appear in any of Paul's catalogs.


User reviews

Gardataur

Gardataur

Robert Paul is a largely forgotten name today, but he was a major pioneer of British cinema, and was quick to grasp the commercial potential of cinema in ways that better known pioneers such as William Friese-Greene were not. He was more of a mechanic than a filmmaker making, with Birt Acres, his own camera on which to shoot films in 1895, and also Britain's first projector, the Animatograph, with which to screen them in 1896. Early in the 20th century he had a custom-made studio built in Muswell Hill.

Royal Train is a short piece of film shot from a static camera which captures the arrival of the royal train into a station where it is greeted by a crowd held back by a row of policemen. Not a lot happens – we don't even get to see anyone alighting from the train. It's fair to say this isn't one of Paul's more interesting films.
Tegore

Tegore

In all honesty, if you've seen the Lumiere Bros' "Arrival of a Train at la Ciotat" than you aren't missing much if you choose to skip this one. Just about every filmmaker in the world made films of trains arriving in stations (Georges Méliès included). This one is slightly different because the original angle, (which made it seem as though audiences were going to be run over) is non-existent here, instead the shot is filmed from a side angle. This makes it somewhat interesting because a lot of these train movies usually imitated the original angle. A moment in time, nothing more but certainly worth a watch for historians and lovers of the earliest films.