Lubin's Uncle Tom: Movie Movie - The History of World Cinema

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May 1903: Lubin's Uncle Tom

Siegmund Lubin

Following Thomas Edison’s legal victory in the copyright case, Siegmund Lubin took the precaution of copyrighting more than 30 popular titles without actually making the films. Titles included Three Little Pigs, Old Mother Hubbard, Jack and Jill, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which he copyrighted on 1^st May 1903, and which nearly sparked another confrontation with Edison.

Lubin made no secret of the fact that he had copyrighted these titles, and word got back to Edison’s people, who had already begun filming their version of the Harriet Beecher Stowe tale, via one N. Dushane Cloward, a travelling exhibitor who had paid a visit to Lubin’s Philadelphia office. This news delayed the release of Edison’s version of the film from July to September 1903 while Howard Hayes’ one of Edison’s lawyers, investigated the veracity and implications of Cloward’s information.

Hayes discovered that Lubin had only copyrighted a photograph under the title ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin', but the copyright failed to give him a monopoly on the title. As long as the photograph itself wasn’t copied, Lubin had no legal comeback against Edison if he released his film under the title.

Within a week of this news Edison was advertising the film in trade journals – and just one more week after Edison’s adaptation was released, Lubin released a meticulous copy, pruning a cakewalk sequence and increasing the pace to produce a 700 ft version compared to Edison’s 1100 ft film.

Lubin’s version was filmed in the gallery of his new studio on the roof of 912 Arch Street. Lubin himself played the role of Simon Legree, the cruel plantation owner, and fraudulently claimed for years afterwards that Eliza’s escape had been filmed on the ice of the Schuylkill river near Valley Forge. The film was released around the 12^th September 1903.

In the summer of 1903, Lubin also successfully branched into the film exchange business, running the Philadelphia Film Exchange from his home on North Fifteenth Street and offering ‘one million feet of film on 1,000 foot reels, changed weekly’. [ADD]