First Commercial Film Myth


Today in school I learned that this is widely believed to be the first commercial celluloid projection for an audience. I learned that it has been dissproven and that this film actually got it before the Lumiere bros did... "A public showing of a four-minute film takes place in a storefront at 153 Broadway, New York on May 20 of this year (1895). It was a boxing match which had been filmed by Woodville Latham and his sons Otway and Grey. The staged fight had been filmed on the roof of Madison Square Garden. The boxers were known as 'Young Griffo' and 'Battling Barnett'. When asked by son Otway Latham whether a scene could be projected on a screen like in the Kinetoscope parlours, father Woodville answered, "You can project anything on a screen that you can see with the naked eye and which can be photographed."" - http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/LATHAM_BIO.html

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Just browsing through imdb's first titles today (starting at imdb.com/title/tt0000001) I came across the same thing.
Also this:
The oldest known films were shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince in 1888, on paper film.
There was also a public projection of short moving pictures (Das Wintergartenprogramm der Gebrüder Skladanowsky) in Berlin on Nov. 1st, 1895 which featured among others Das boxende Känguruh (1895) (The Boxing Kangaroo)


We're hiding like elephants when they're happy.

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Fascinating! I had no idea there were films this old (where have I been?). Thanks for that link, I'm checking out Carmencita (1894) right now.


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This is *beep* cool

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