The Myth of the Damsel on the Railroad Tracks

(via Atlas Obscura) Most people are familiar with that most clichéd of old cinema tropes: the damsel-in-distress, tied to the railroad tracks by a villain, only to be saved at the last moment.  As a method of murder, this seems so melodramatic that it must have originated back in the days of the silent film. But that scene rarely ever occurred, and probably not in the way you think it did.