Rip Van Winkle (1912 film)
Rip Van Winkle is a 1912 Australian feature-length film directed by W. J. Lincoln about Rip Van Winkle. It was arguably Australia's first fantasy film. It is considered a lost film. Production. The film was made in the wake of a successful Australian season of Joseph Jefferson and Dion Boucicault's theatre adaptation of Washington Irving's 1819 short story "Rip Van Winkle". One reviewer said that star Arthur Styan "has figured in several of the previous productions of the Amalgamated Pictures Ltd., and who makes quite a success of this." Assisting Lincoln  was Sam Crews. Reception. The film appears not to have been widely released. The "Bendigo Advertiser" said that "the famous story is most effectively explained in the picture production." In April 1912 "The Bulletin" said "Rip Van Winkle is biographed in Melbourne excellently, by an Australian company, with Styan as Winkle."