|
Search By:
|
|
1894: The Movie Show That Never Was...
Any attempt at unravelling the complicated tangle of events that took place in the last decade of the nineteenth century with regard to the birth of the cinema is hampered today by the conflicting claims and counterclaims made by those in the thick of the action, and those watching from the sidelines who could only wish they were in the thick of it. These characters have muddied the pre-cinema waters to such a degree that no study of that period carried out today can claim to be 100 % accurate.
One character who may – or may not – be amongst those water-muddying culprits is one Jean Aimé Leroy. Leroy was born near Bedford, Kentucky, USA to French parents and worked as an apprentice to a New York photographer. Leroy claimed that, after seeing Edison’s kinetoscope in December 1893, he adapted a projector he had invented to work with perforated film. Two months later, on the 5th February 1894, he is reputed to have projected two kinetoscope films – Washing the Baby and The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots – using his projector – the Marvelous Cinematograph – to an audience of twenty-five in the back room of the Riley Brother’s optic and magic lantern shop at 16 Beekman Street, New York.
Unfortunately for Leroy, there is one flaw in his claim to cinematic precedence – both movies had yet to be filmed at the time Leroy claims he was showing them to an audience (now that really is movie magic!). Similarly, doubts are cast on a further claim by Leroy that he projected films for a paying audience at the Opera House in Clinton, New Jersey on 22nd February 1895 due to the fact that there are no records to show that an Opera House ever existed in the small town of Clinton. A handbill advertising the show – reputed to be a fake printed to support Leroy’s spurious claims by some researchers – is still in existence. [ADD]
© 2009-2010 moviemoviesite.com