of a varied bill of entertainment; other informal venues also sometimes showed films. The Edison Manufacturing Company announced The Great Train Robbery to exhibitors in early November 1903, calling it a "highly sensationalized Headliner". To secure copyright, they submitted a rough cut of the film (about fifteen feet longer than the final cut) to the Library of Congress, where it survives as a paper print. The final release print was made available in early December 1903. Edison sold it to exhibitors for , as a 740-foot reel. The first known showing of The Great Train Robbery was at a New York City dime museum, Huber's Museum. By the following week it was appearing at eleven venues in the city area, including the Eden Musée, a major amusement center. Edison advertisements touted the film as "absolutely the superior of any moving picture ever made" and a "faithful imitation of the genuine 'Hold Ups' made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West". Several prints of The Great Train Robbery survive; a few of these were heavily edited and altered by their owners, but most are in their release state, and at least one is hand-colored.The Great Train Robbery was a major commercial success for the Edison company. It played as the headlining attraction in many vaudeville houses, and showed up frequently at two other entertainment venues that proliferated across the country in the following years: immersive venues where the spectator took simulated railroad journeys, such as Hale's Tours of the World, and a new kind of film venue, the nickelodeon, where The Great Train Robbery was often the first attraction shown. It was the first film shown at Harry Davis and John P. Harris' Nickelodeon theater. Overall, it may have had the biggest success of any film made before 1905. Its popularity was helped by its timely subject matter (as train robberies were still a familiar news item), as well as its striking depictions of action and violence. Unusually for the time, the film was even described in detail in the New York Times; the anonymous reviewer criticized most of the players, but praised the horse riding and stunts, concluding: "All this is the result of poor acting, but the results are certainly astounding." The film was also widely imitated and copied; the Lubin Manufacturing Company made a shot-for-shot remake in August 1904, changing only small details. (Film copyright was