Matinees On Main Street: A Movie History Podcast

At the end of the 19th century, one of the most popular type of films was moving images of trains, as well as the British version, known as the Phantom Ride.

The actual war between America and Spain in 1898 was remarkably short. The fighting took place between June and September. During that time a lot of movies about the war were made, and they were all very successful. On this episode, we'll look at a number of them.

The break out of the Spanish American War in 1898 gave the American film industry a great opportunity to show the public that it was more than just a novelty. In Part One we look at the beginnings of the conflict, the explosion on the battleship Maine, and the early films of the war.

In this episode, Leon Gaumont ends up owning a company that makes movie machines, and on her down time, his secretary, Alice Guy, starts to make movies for the company.

By 1898, Thomas Edison's production manager, William Gilmore, as well as Edison's lawyers, starting sizing up the people who were exploiting the patent that the electricity wizard lay claim to, and threaten those people with lawsuits in an attempt to coerce them to shut down or to pay a percentage to Edison. This scheme was only partially successful, but it would go on for years.

We look at how two Brits living in America, and working in vaudeville, started the Vitagraph Company of America.

The novelty of seeing pictures move was no longer such a marvel to some people, so the moving picture people started making movies that created their own novelty. These films were were slices of life, now called actualities, but the movie people also started experimenting with comedy, magic tricks, and other types of novelties to get peoples' attention.

Georges Méliès now enters the picture. He will be the first person to take the idea of movies and do something creative with them. it is through the work of Melies that we get early movies about devils, witches, haunted houses, magical orchestras, fairy tales, and even a trip to the moon.

So, after the first projector appeared, and after the first movies were shown in the theaters, what was on the public's minds about this interresting new novelty?