Films Facts and Forecasts (1927)

HISTORY AND FUTURE OF THE FILM 5 1896 produced on the roof of the Alhambra Theatre a semi-fictional film, entitled " The Soldier's Courtship," 40 feet in length. Few films were longer than that. " The Passion Play/' produced by Hollaman in New York in 1897-98, which was about 2,000 feet in length, was the most ambitious effort of the day, but it hardly ranks as fiction, for the scenes were copied from the Oberammergau play. Cecil Hepworth in London had made one or two little fiction subjects — " Rescued by Rover " was one — but they had not been regarded as pointing the way to a new film style, and the early days of the century saw the film in America sinking into disrepute, because the public were getting tired of the topicals. The era of the film-play is usually said to have opened (why, I am not quite sure) with the production in 1903 of " The Great Train Robbery " by a couple of Edison's lieutenants. It was 800 feet long, took ten or twelve minutes to show, and created a furore in America. Miss Mae Murray was the principal actress, appearing in a dance-hall scene. " The Great Train Robbery " inaugurated the era of the popular one-reeler, which meant that the average length of a film had been increased from 40 to 1,000 feet, and the one-reeler ruled supreme for eight or nine years before anyone thought seriously of producing a film which, by taking an hour or more to show, would compete with the appeal of a play. The one-reeler, which varied in length from 800 to 2,000 feet, corresponded roughly to a music-hall turn, and could be easily incorporated in a vaudeville programme. But it went on to call for establishments of its own, where it would be the principal attraction. In Europe for many years the film continued to be shown in musichalls, but in America its popularity gave rise to that