What Happened in the Tunnel

This film, directed by Edison stalwart Edwin S. Porter (who would go on to make The Great Train Robbery later the same year) takes place on a train carrying a white woman and her black maid and an amorous young man played by Gilbert Anderson, the future Broncho Billy. It's a typical one-scene short with a punchline designed to raise laughs from an audience of its day but which appears very tame today. This film uses one of the same techniques used in The Great Train Robbery: the passing scenery seen through the train's window. It's quite an effective special effect for it's day but there isn't really anything else of note to see in this one.