A Short History of the American Silent Screen

Section One
The year 2003 marks the 100th birthday of one of the most influential films ever
made. This film changed not only the way films were made, but, more importantly,
the way they were received. It is most unusual, therefore, that neither the name of
this film nor the director are household names, yet without The Great Train Robbery
directed by Edwin S. Porter, there would be no Bruce Willis, no Quentin Tarantino,
and no multi-billion dollar film industry.
But Porter is not alone in his greatness, nor his obscurity. For he is just one of the
fathers of modern film, one of those who helped to transform film from a mere
curiosity into a money making art form, all before movies learned to talk
The First Moving Pictures
Before the days of photography, man had already perfected ways of viewing pictures
that moved. Though these were drawings rather than photographs, they entertained
the well-to-do on long winter nights while the peasants shivered in their huts. After
the advent of photography in the 1820s, inventors began looking for ways to make
photographs move.
By the late 19th century there were many different devices that could make still
photographs appear to move, from Magic Lanterns to the Fantascope. All these
machines worked on the same principle: the use of a series of single still
photographs (or drawings in the days before photography) viewed in sequence to
simulate movement. Although these forms of entertainment were popular, man was
not content with a simulation of movement; he wanted the real thing.
Edison Gets in the Picture
Not surprisingly, one of the first Americans to become interested in making pictures
move was Tomas Alva Edison. Edison, whose invention in 1879 of the first efficient
incandescent light bulb would be later used for film projectors, tried to tie in moving
pictures with another of his inventions, the phonograph. This invention, called the
Kinetophonograph, used normal, rapidly moving photographs, hooked up to an
Edison phonograph to give it sound. Although the apparatus was not efficient enough
for commercial use, Edison was able to make the first moving pictures with sound in
1888, a full 39 years before Hollywood made The Jazz Singer, the first talkie, in
1927. But, due to its unreliability, Edison thought of the Kinetophonograph as a
failure, and soon lost interest in making pictures move, preferring instead to
concentrate on making a practical electrical chair, with which criminals could be
executed more quickly and efficiently.
But though Edison lost interest, he had other assistants working for him who did not.
One of them, William Dickson, invented in 1890 the Kinetograph, the first real motion
picture camera. Using film 35mm in width, and with sprocket holes on the sides,
Dickson was able to record movement as it actually happened. But, like many men
living in the shadow of more famous colleagues, the credit for the kinetograph didnt
go to Dickson, but rather to Edison. Dickson didnt let the lack of credit deter him,

and he continued with his experiments, inventing a year later the Kinetoscope, a
device which allowed a single patron, after inserting a coin of course, to view a film
from the Kinetograph. It was decided that in order to make the device more reliable,
sound would not be included, and thus, motion pictures remained virtually silent for
the next 36 years.
Dickson used the Kinetograph to make the worlds first film, Monkeyshines, which
was about thirty seconds of Fred Ott, Dicksons colleague, moving around in front of
the camera. Although the film was not exactly a masterpiece by todays standards, it
did mark the birth of the film industry, and every film that has come after owes it a
debt of gratitude.
The First Films
In 1893 Edison opened the Black Maria, the worlds first movie studio, located in
West Orange, New Jersey. The Black Maria was so named because, according to
Edisons employees, the square-shaped building covered in tar paper resembled a
police paddy wagon. The studio also had a retractable roof to allow sun to come in,
thus providing light for the camera, and was mounted on rollers so it could turn to
follow the sun as it moved across the sky. These were the days before strong
artificial lights, therefore direct sunlight was an important ingredient when making a
film.
The first film made at the new studio,The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze,
showed just that, a sneeze. The film started as Fred Ott (the star of Monkeyshines)
began a sneeze, and ended a few seconds later when he finished it. Once again, not
very exciting stuff, but movie audiences at the time were amazed by anything that
was put onto film, regardless of what it was. The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a
Sneeze, which is also known as Fred Otts Sneeze, is the oldest copyrighted film in
existence, with a copyright date of January, 1894.
The films of the 1890s were not very sophisticated, and were not intended for
intellectual audiences. A single, stationary camera was used, with little imagination
going into its placement. Most films were simply a demonstration of the new medium,
and were used for novelty purposes to make money as quickly as possible before the
public grew tired of them. Some films were partially in color, which required an artist
to paint by hand each frame of the negative, a particularly time consuming process.
A typical film was merely a documentary, uncut and unedited, showing scenes from
ordinary life. Trains, ships, and balloons, all in motion, were shown in films 30 to 60
seconds long, to single viewers who put coins into the slots of the viewing machines,
the Kinetoscopes, which stood in long rows in specialty shops and arcades. Street
scenes were popular, as well as scenes from magic shows, vaudeville, sporting
events, and, of course, strip teases. Scenes from Buffalo Bills Wild West Show were
one of the most popular of these early films, and audiences happily inserted coin
after coin into the Kinetoscopes to view the legendary hero of the Wild West.
End of Section One