The Mottershaws of the Sheffield Photo Co are not as famous as Hollywood filmmakers, but they made their mark. Director Penny Woolcock brings their most pioneering work back to life - a little-known silent film called Daring Daylight Burglary, which they say influenced the classic Great Train Robbery. Making it, the Mottershaws worked out how to tell fictional stories on location and tell them well: chase sequences, revenge motives, trains leaving stations pursued and just missed or caught as they pull away... These are just some of the thriller tropes we take for granted now; the Mottershaws made them work in 1903.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 10:15:01 +0000