moviepas wrote:I don't think it's actually the first feature film. I know the Richard the III feature predates it, and there are probably others.
I might have been the Australian feature from 1900 called Soldiers of the Cross which also had a number of magic lantern slides in-between the moving footage. The film was made by the Salvation Army's then Limelight Productions H-Qeds in Melbourne's downtown and I think they had a sort of studio in nearby East Melb which would be waking distance from the HQ. The producer was one of the Booth family.
Only last night on talkback radio the two now in their 70s announcers mentioned it and the right title as above(unusual for one of them who always gets facts wrong on everything). The mention was because they were talking about Australia's biggest shopping center(Chadstone for Google Maps followers) and still expanding. They said the film had been made On the site. They may have been right. My slant on it was that the arena for the eating of the Christians was constructed at a Children's Home a little further up the same highway on a major corner where there was an ample tennis court that they used. (The original site of the center had been a Convert of the Good Shepherd and part of their land went to the center at the time. I think the center has all the land today & more.)
As far as I know the original slides exist either as slides or the original artwork that was photographed for the film. I understand the film went to America for distribution and that they hoped footage might be found there. Not sure any did.
However in the mid-20's they made a feature here of the Marcus Clarke novel, For the Term of His Natural Life and I understand footage from that one came back from USA. The film also had tinted scenes. I have seen a VHS but no DVD of this one. The film has a ship burning. It is understood that rare newsreels were used to create the explosive fire. If this is so, it shows the contempt the early filmmakers & others thought about saving actualities. Such stories are never happy ones to me.
There was another film released in 1906 called The Story of the Kelly Gang loosely based on fact about Australia's most notorious bushranger, Ned Kelly. Part exists only and a few more feet turned up in recent times. A documentary incorporating the existing footage and a book has been issued on disc. It is said to be the world's first narrative feature film. It might have run 60mins or so and was also made in my city. Kelly was hung in a former famous Melbourne jail and his remains have been identified and are to go to the surviving family for a proper burial. The grave was a prison grave at Coburg, a Melbourne suburb and the former prison was called Pentridge, the earliest name of Coburg. Now being developed as a housing estate(I visited this site earlier this year on the way to a funeral on that side of the city), the developer believes he owns the relics and wanted to do his own memorial. Mick Jagger played the Irish Kelly in a c1970 film and the Hartney Arthur, of the former Milestone 8mm business, was involved in late 40s attempts to tell the story of Kelly's career(?). As a sideline, Kelly cussed out the Judge, Sir Redmond Barry, who died suddenly a few days after pronouncing the death sentence on Kelly.
Yes, but the topic at hand isn't the first feature film produced, but the first feature film released in the U.S. And on that, the first would seem to be L'INFERNO; the only date I can find online for the U.S. release is July 1911, with no day specified.
Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:37 am
