1899 in film

The following is an overview of the events of 1899 in film, including a list of films released and notable births.

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Events

September
- King John, a silent compilation of three short scenes from a forthcoming stage production by Herbert Beerbohm Tree with film direction by William Kennedy Dickson and Walter Pfeffer Dando, is filmed in London, the first known film based on a Shakespeare play.
- Mitchell and Kenyon of Blackburn in the north of England release three fiction films under the 'Norden' brand which attract national attention – The Tramp's Surprise, The Tramps and the Artist and Kidnapping by Indians, the latter being the first Western.
November – The oldest surviving Japanese film, Momijigari, is shot by Tsunekichi Shibata in Tokyo as a record of kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the play Momijigari.
T. C. Hepworth invents Biokam,^[1] a 17.5 mm format which also is the first format to have a center perforation.
John Alfred Prestwich invents a 13 mm amateur format.^[2]

Beauty and the Beast, produced for Pathe (French)^[3]
The Biter Bit, produced by Bamforth & Co Ltd
Cagliostro's Mirror, directed by George Melies
Cinderella (Cendrillon), directed by Georges Méliès
Cleopatra, directed by George Melies, later re-released as Cleopatra's Tomb^[4]
Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene, produced by Edison Studios
The Demon Barber, produced by American Mutoscope
The Devil in a Convent, directed by Georges Méliès, later re-released as The Sign of the Cross
The Dreyfus Affair, a series of docudramas directed by Georges Méliès
The Haunted House, directed by Siegmund Lubin
How Would You Like to Be the Ice Man?
The Jeffries-Sharkey Fight, a documentary that is in all likelihood lost; running over two hours, this is one of the oldest feature films
Kidnapping by Indians
King John
The Kiss in the Tunnel, directed by George Albert Smith; has been cited as cinema's first example of narrative editing
Major Wilson's Last Stand
A Midnight Episode, directed by George Melies, aka A Good Bed
The Miser's Doom (British), directed by Walter R. Booth
A Mysterious Portrait, directed by Georges Méliès
Pillar of Fire (aka The Column of Fire), directed by George Melies, adapting a scene from the novel "She" by H. Rider Haggard^[5]
Raising Spirits, directed by George Melies

^ Abel, Richard (2010). Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. London and New York: Routledge. p. 26. ISBN 978-0415778565.
^ Herbert, Stephen. "John Alfred Prestwich". Who's Who of Victorian Cinema. Retrieved 2013-02-24.
^ Haase, Donald (2008). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: A-F. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 386. ISBN 978-0-313-33442-9.
^ Kinnard,Roy (1995). "Horror in Silent Films". McFarland and Company Inc. ISBN 0-7864-0036-6. Page 12.
^ Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.

This page was last edited on 3 October 2023, at 09:35