for The Great Train Robbery. Western themes were already popular in films and other entertainment, reflecting the wide public interest in stories about the past and present of the American West. Many American films before 1900 can be classified as Westerns, such as actuality views of cowboy life, staged Western anecdotes like A Bluff from a Tenderfoot and Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene (both 1899), and shots of Annie Oakley and of Oglala and Brulé dancers from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (both 1894). Studios abroad also began telling Western stories early on, with Mitchell and Kenyon's 1899 British film Kidnapping by Indians the first known example. Edison's 1901 film Stage Coach Hold-up, based on Buffalo Bill's "Hold-up of the Deadwood Stage" act, probably influenced Porter directly. Porter may have also been inspired by recent real events related to the American West: in August 1900, Butch Cassidy and his gang had robbed a Union Pacific Railroad train and escaped capture, and in September 1903, Bill Miner's gang made an unsuccessful holdup of an Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company train. For the film's title and basic concept, Porter looked to Scott Marble's The Great Train Robbery, a popular stage melodrama that had premiered in Chicago in 1896 and had been revived in New York in 1902. The play covers the adventures of a Texas criminal gang who attempt to steal a $50,000 gold shipment from a Wells Fargo office in Missouri. Their initial scheme is for a mole planted in the company to make off with the gold before it leaves Missouri by train; this plan goes awry, and only leads to an innocent man's arrest. However, using information received at a Texas mountain saloon, the gang are still able to stop the train, blast open the car containing the gold, and bring it back to their secret hideout in a Red River canyon. The United States Marshals Service tracks down the gang and finally defeats them in a climactic fight, with cowboys and Native Americans drawn into the fray. For the narrative style, Porter likely drew freely on various recent popular films, made by filmmakers experimenting with elaborate storytelling. A Daring Daylight Burglary, a British chase drama from the Sheffield Photo Company, has frequently been cited as particularly influential; it and another British film, Desperate Poaching Affray, were successfully imported to America and started a decade-long vogue for films centered on