"I'm afraid she's a bit tied up at the moment, but I have a feeling we'll be running into her shortly."
— Khallos from Time Splitters
The music is high tempo, the damsel is in distress, and the mustachioed villain is mugging to the camera. Yup, she's been chained to a railroad track, and the express is on its way. Used and, indeed, recycled in many silent movies, modern films, student films, Tv shows, cartoons, video games and comics to the point where it's almost parodied .
Cartoon Damsels- From Funny to Fabulous !!
This familiar scenario first appeared in the 1867 short story "Captain Tom's Fright", although a more rudimentary form of it was seen on stage in 1863 in the play The Engineer. However, it really entered the meme pool as a result of its inclusion in the 1867 play Under the Gaslight, by Augustin Daly. (Interestingly, in Gaslight the victim is a male, not a fair maiden) By 1868, it reportedly could be found in five different London plays all running at the same time, and remained a theatre staple for decades. From there it was but a short leap to silent films when the latter appeared on the scene, the first appearance on film seemingly being the 1913 movie, Barney Oldfield's Race for Life. In this short comedy movie, virtuous Mabel Normand refuses the advances of the villain and is chained to the railroad tracks for her troubles.
Barney Oldfield's Race For Life
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The earliest real-life incident I could find was from 1874, when on August 31 the New York Times reported that a Frenchman named Gardner had been robbed and tied to railroad tracks. He managed to loosen all the ropes but the one that secured his left foot, and the train cut off his leg below the knee. Though he survived to describe the attack, he soon died of his injuries.
There are other examples, including cases involving a kidnapped 13-year-old boy (1881), a 40-year-old mechanic (the article actually uses the word "dastardly" to describe the crime), a college freshman (part of a 1905 fraternity initiation; he died), a 10-year-old boy (1906), and a 19-year-old man (1907).
An even earlier version of the scene comes from an English play by Charles Bolton called The Engineer (1863). The special effects may have been rudimentary – the train was typically painted onto a wood flat, which was then mounted on rails – but audiences loved it, says Nicholas Daly in "Sensation Drama, the Railway, and Modernity," an essay republished in his 2004 book Literature, Technology, and Modernity.
Pertinent Pages from Captain Tom's Fright
The railroad scene was popularized in the U.S. by a play by Augustin Daly (no relation, apparently) called Under the Gaslight (1867). Daly claimed the scene as his own, quite literally. In 1868 he sued theatrical promoters who were trying to put on a play by Dion Boucicault called After Dark that included its own railroad scene. The defendants pointed to "Captain Tom's Fright" as evidence that Daly's story wasn't original, but the court gave this argument short shrift and enjoined production of their play. Daly sued a few more times and wound up before the Supreme Court in 1899; the Court affirmed an award of statutory damages for violations of Daly's copyright.
--To Be Continued Next Week !!--
