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THE ACTUAL
were shown by Enoch Rector in America, being a cinematic record of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons light at Carson City, Nevada. Exceptionally dull as this enormous length of film must have been, its novelty was probably astounding. During the same year a film version about three thousand feet long of the Oberammergau Passion Play was made by Richard Hollaman. This was not a genuine reproduction of the real spectacle, as was advertised, but was manufactured on the roof of the Grand Central Palace — a fact, however, which did not worry the public when they became aware of the deception.
About this time also, some wonderful trick effects of fade-outs, dissolves, and other photographic devices now familiar were attained by Georges Melies at the Theatre Robert Hondin in Paris. Melies actually had his own studio, which was constructed in 1896, and amongst other films produced a version of Jules Verne's Trip to the Moon}
Although these novelties were widely successful, it was not until 1903 that the first real attempt to tell a story by moving pictures was made. This event was achieved by Edwin S. Porter's sensational The Great Train Robbery, eight hundred feet in length, with Marie Murray as the leading lady in what must surely have been the first cabaret on the screen. This film was rapidly succeeded by many other ' story-pictures ', as they were called, of a similar type, such as The Great Bank Robbery, Trapped by Bloodhounds, and A Lynching at Cripple Creek. Thereafter, for some years, there set in an orgy of one-reel melodramas.
The arrival of the story-picture almost at once gave rise to the need for suitable places in which to project these efforts, which resulted in the famous nickelodeon or fivecent theatre. The first of these was opened by Harry Davis, of Pittsburgh, a real-estate operator and the proprietor of a stage theatre. This excellent showman opened his nickelodeon in 1905 with The Great Train Robbery as the first stupendous attraction, much in the same way as
1 For a detailed study of Melies, see the well-illustrated and documented book by Maurice Bessy and Lo Duca (Prisma, Paris, 1945).
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