Execution of Czolgosz, with Panorama of Auburn Prison (1901)

[spadeneal]

A couple of questions:

One site states that the recreation sequences are filmed in the Black Maria. That can't be right, could it? The Black Maria closed in January 1901 and the film was made in late October/early November. Besides the "interiors" look like typical sunlit, outdoor sets.

Another references a static scene with actors waiting for the action to start; but there is action in that scene. The men are testing the electric chair with something that looks like a platter or tray with lightbulbs.

In this frame on Urbanora's blog, isn't that Edwin S. Porter standing on the left?

spadeneal

[Harlett O'Dowd]

do you have a link to this?

[spadeneal]

Indeed Harlett, I meant to include the link, my bad:

http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2008/03/

and here is a link to the film itself:

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mbrsmi/lcmp001.m1b38298

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[urbanora]

Here's the live link:

http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2008/03/ ... -pictures/

and the film:

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mbrsmi/lcmp001.m1b38298

An intriguing theory - it's not impossible that it might be Porter, it looks a little like him, but I've no idea whether he appeared in his own films and haven't got Charles Musser's biography to hand to be able to check.

[urbanora]

I'd forgotten that Musser's Before the Nickelodeon is freely available online:

http://www.escholarship.org/editions/vi ... nd=ucpress

He writes this about the film:

The New York World reported that "the owner of a kinetoscope telegraphed that he would pay $2,000 for permission to take a moving picture of Czolgosz entering the death chamber." If White and Porter hoped to film Czolgosz on his way to being executed, they had to be content with filming the exterior of the prison and making "a realistic imitation of the last scene in the electric chair." This studio reenactment, "faithfully carried out from the description of an eye witness" was based, one can be sure, on newspaper reports. Edison production personnel took roles in the film, and James White can be seen signaling "cut" to the cameraman (Porter) just before the film ends. (According to Iris Barry, the Edison Company also tried to recreate Czolgosz's assassination of McKinley, but finally thought better of it.)

[spadeneal]

Well, thanks Urbanora for the bit from Musser. It does confirm one thing I suspected; that the film is really a collaboration between White and Porter. Usually the latter is credited alone for this project. It's an important one: it is a very early American film that tells a coherent storyline through the use of multiple shots -- the English and French had been there already, but it shows the Americans were finally catching up. I don't think I know of an earlier film that combines actuality footage with a recreation in order to give the whole thing a sense of authenticity. And for 1901, it's also unusually long, at least from the US standpoint of average production methods.

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