What was the first movie ever? (1 Viewer)

[Jon_p_s]

I'm just sort of curios as to what the first movie was and when it came out. I didn't find much when I searched and I couldn't find a previous topic. Also, does anyone know of any good dvds pertaining to the history of films and film making? Thanks for your help

 

[Carl Johnson]

Check out this site on early film making devices.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

First full length movie was The Sotry Of The Kelly Gang:

from the IMDb

* First film to run for more than 60 minutes.
* Considered the first full-length feature film ever made.
* Only fragments of this film are known to survive.

 

[ThomasC]

Has there been any talk of bringing the fragments of The Story of the Kelly Gang to DVD?

 

[Jon_p_s]

That would be very interesting to see. Are the fragments available on laserdisc or even vhs?

 

[JustinCleveland]

A horse running was the first ever moving picture, IIRC.

 

[Peter Kline]

Also try thissite for the history of sound films.

 

[Seth--L]

The first motion picture to be projected on a screen and viewed by an audience was Lumière's Workers Leaving the Factory, c.1895.

Edison had been making motion pictures before that, but they could only be viewed by a single person at a time by essentially sticking your head into a box. His first motion picture was The Sneeze, c.1894

 

[Peter Kline]

There was also the Nickelodeon in which you put your nickel in a slot looked through the viewing lenses and saw "The Kiss" and other short films. Those were extremely popular and spawned the movie industry.

 

[Blu]

What was the first movie to have nudity in it?
I've often thought of such things...LOL!

 

[Seth--L]

Nickelodeons were movie theaters with an admission price of 5 cents. You're thinking of devices like the Kinetoscope and Mutoscope. Both were short lived because of the Lumière brothers.

 

[Seth--L]

I can't give you a title, but some of Edison's pre 20th C. films had nudity.

 

[Peter Kline]

Umm. There's an old song from the 50s by Teresa Brewer. It went something like this:

"Put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon. all I need is loving you and music, music, music......." Perhaps the venues that had these machines were called Nickelodeons?

 

[Seth--L]

Not that I know of. The venues were called [device name]parlors, such as Kinetoscope parlors. I think that simply for the sake of the song, Nickelodeon sounded better than Mutoscope.

 

[Peter Kline]

OK. I figured it out, I think. Nickelodeons were player pianos!

 

[Jason_Els]

This is it:




This image is linked from here.

Everything we on screen started with Mr. Ott's sneeze in 1894. You have no idea how lucky we are that this survives.

 

[Seth--L]

I disagree. As I stated in an earlier post, film would have remained a novelty if it wasn't for the Lumière Brothers. Edison's cameras and projection method had a large number of shortcomings.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

For DVDs regarding the early history of film, you cannot do better than the massive 5-disc set, The Movies Begin. Much of the early Edison and Lumiere output is here, as are a full disc of the ground-breaking effects films of Georges Melies, and a ton of other material. There are also easter eggs (well-hidden) of a dozen Library of Congress paper prints of early films (including Edison's notorious Electrocution of an Elephant). The text is a bit light, but there's enough information here to serve as an excellent introduction to the beginnings of the infant film industry.

If you're more interested in early feature films, then the Smithsonian's Origins of Film set (now sadly out of print) and Treasures of American Film Archives provide a look at a good sampling of early features as well short films. The earliest surviving feature film, an adaptation of Richard III is also out on DVD as a separate disc from Kino.

Finally, for early film comedy there's the incredible Slapstick Encyclopedia set from Kino that features everyone who was anyone in silent comedy, with emphasis on the shorts.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Everything we on screen started with Mr. Ott's sneeze in 1894. You have no idea how lucky we are that this survives.

And after 109 years it still manages to look better than the original DVD transfer of The Howling

 

[Simon_Lepine]

You can see a lot of the first Edison movies online here. You'll be able to see The Great Train Robbery there, sometimes considered the first real movie, since it was one of the first to tell a fictional story.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhm.html