NitrateVille.com

The good old Internet, a well of confusion and misinformation.

First, her IMDb filmography lists her three first films as:

A Night Out; or, He Couldn't Go Home in the Morning (1908)
How Molly Malone Made Good (1915) (Herself, Cameo Appearance)
A Night Out (1916)

IMDb has no other info on the 1908 film except for May Robson's presence and the company name: Vitagraph, which also produced the 1916 film. TCM likewise lists the 1908 film, but again: "No information".

The 1916 A Night Out was based on a play Robson had co-written as well as starred in, The Three Lights, which opened in 1911. That seems to squash the possibility of the 1908 title being an earlier version of the same story.

Question: Could some filmographer have gotten two titles confused, and erroneously placed Robson in the earlier film? It wouldn't be the first time such a mix-up occurred.

Most other sources I could locate names the 1916 A Night Out as her acting debut on film, except for Hal Erickson, Rovi (via answers.com):

the venerable Robson had already been in films for two years when she starred in 1916's A Night Out.

What's the real lowdown on May's early celluloidal escapades?

You'l find no less than 331 mentions of May Robson for the 1908-1915 period at the following link:

http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog?ut ... mmit=Limit" target="_blank" target="_blank

So some of them can eventually answer your question. You could also make the same search limited to 1908. Of course most of these mentions concern her stage career but you can select her eventual movie appearances from the title of the magazine concerned.

If you type "A Night Out" and select the period 1907-1908, you get this:
http://archive.org/stream/movingor03cha ... 5/mode/2up" target="_blank

Thanks!

A perusal of the entries in your first link seem to confirm that the 1916 A Night Out was indeed Robson's film debut (save for her cameo appearance as herself the previous year), while your second link shows an advertisement for the 1908 A Night Out with no performers named. All in all, this strengthens my suspicion that she did not appear in the 1908 film.