Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life

Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life
Title from film
Directed by	Mack Sennett
Produced by	Mack Sennett
Starring	Mack Sennett Mabel Normand Ford Sterling Barney Oldfield The Keystone Cops
Cinematography	Lee Bartholomew Walter Wright
Distributed by	Keystone Film Company
Release date	June 3, 1913 (1913-06-03)
Running time	13 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	Silent film English intertitles

Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life is a 1913 silent comedy short, directed and produced by Mack Sennett. It stars Sennett, Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, The Keystone Cops and Barney Oldfield as himself, in his film debut. It was distributed by the Keystone Film Company, and released in the United States on June 3, 1913. The film is preserved and was released as part of a DVD box set, titled Slapstick Encyclopedia,^[1] and is frequently featured in silent film festivals.

The film is notable for being one of the earliest films to include the plot of a villain tying a young damsel to the tracks of an oncoming locomotive; a holdover from the Gaslight era of Victorian stage melodrama.^[2][3] It's also considered one of the first films to put a camera into a car to give the audience a driver's eye viewpoint.^[4] The famous film still of Normand tied to the railroad tracks has been part of a museum exhibit, and featured in books chronicling the history of notable silent films.