Film History Before 1920 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s The Lumiere Brothers and the Cinematographe: The innovative Lumiere brothers in France, Louis and Auguste (often called "the founding fathers of modern film"), who worked in a Lyons factory that manufactured photographic equipment and supplies, were inspired by Edison's work. They created their own combo movie camera and projector - a more portable, hand-held and lightweight device that could be cranked by hand and could project movie images to several spectators. It was dubbed the Cinematographe and patented in February, 1895. The multi-purpose device (combining camera, printer and projecting capabilities in the same housing) was more profitable because more than a single spectator could watch the film on a large screen. They used a film width of 35mm, and a speed of 16 frames per second - an industry norm until the talkies. By the advent of sound film in the late 1920s, 24 fps became the standard.

The first public test and demonstration of the Lumieres' camera-projector system (the Cinematographe) was made on March 22, 1895, in the Lumieres' basement. During the private screening to a scientific conference - a trial run for their public screening later at the end of the year (see below), they caused a sensation with their first film, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (La Sortie des Ouviers de L'Usine Lumiere a Lyon), although it only consisted of an everyday outdoor image - factory workers leaving the Lumiere factory gate for home or for a lunch break. As generally acknowledged, cinema (a word derived from Cinematographe) was born on December 28, 1895, in Paris, France. The Lumieres presented the first commercial and public exhibition of a projected motion picture to a paying public in the world's first movie theatre - in the Salon Indien, at the Grand Cafe on Paris' Boulevard des Capucines.

[In 1897, a cinema building was built in Paris, solely for the purpose of showing films.] It has often been considered "the birth of film" or "the First Cinema" since the Cinematographe was the first advanced projector (not experimental) and the first to be offered for sale. The 20-minute program included ten short films with twenty showings a day.

These factual shorts (or mini-documentaries), termed actualities, with the mundane quality of home movies, included the following: La Sortie des Ouviers de L'Usine Lumière à Lyon (1895) (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory) (46 seconds) La Voltige (1895) (Horse Trick Riders) (46 seconds) La Pêche aux Poissons Rouges (1895) (Fishing for Goldfish) (42 seconds) Le Débarquement du Congrès de Photographie à Lyon (1895) (The Disembarkment of the Congress of Photographers in Lyon) (48 seconds) Les Forgerons (1895) (Blacksmiths) (49 seconds) Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur Arrosé) (The Gardener or The Sprinkler Sprinkled) (1895) (49 seconds) Le Repas (de Bébé) (1895) (Baby's Meal) (41 seconds) Le Saut à la Couverture (1895) (Jumping onto the Blanket) (41 seconds)

 La Place des Cordeliers à Lyon (1895) (Cordeliers Square in Lyon) (44 seconds) La Mer (Baignade en Mer) (1895) (Bathing in the Sea) (38 seconds) The ten shorts included the famous first comedy (# 6) of a gardener with a watering hose (aka The Sprinkler Sprinkled, Waterer and Watered, or L'Arrouseur Arrose), the factory worker short (# 1, see above), a sequence (# 9) of a horse-drawn carriage approaching toward the camera, and a scene (# 7) of the feeding of a baby.

The Lumieres also became known for their 50-second short Arrivee d'un train en gare a La Ciotat (1895) (Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat), which some sources reported was shocking to its first unsophisticated viewing audience. By 1898, the Lumiere's company had produced a short film catalog with over 1,000 titles. Other Developments in Projecting Machines: Two brothers in Berlin, Germany - inventors Emil and Max Skladanowsky - created their own film device for projecting films in November, 1895. Also in 1895, American inventor Major Woodville Latham (who had been working with Eugene Lauste and W.K.L. Dickson) developed an unpopular projector called an Eidoloscope (or Panoptikon projector). In New York on Frankfort Street, it was demonstrated by Latham for the NY press on April 21, 1895. It was one of the first public exhibitions of motion pictures in the world. What was most innovative and long-lasting was its Latham Loop - a feature of movie projectors.

It involved the addition of a slack-forming loop to the film path to restrain the inertia of the take-up reel, and prevent the tearing of sprocket holes. It also allowed for the use of films longer than three minutes. (This showing preceded the landmark exhibition of the Lumieres in Paris by about eight months. See above.) On June 1, 1895, Latham applied for a patent for his "Projecting-Kinetoscope" with the "Latham Loop." It was granted and lasted until its expiration in 1913. By 1905, virtually all movie projectors used the Latham Loop. (The loop is still used in virtually all film cameras and projectors almost to this day.) And American inventors Thomas Armat and Charles Francis Jenkins developed the Phantascope in 1893, an improved device (with intermittent-motion mechanisms) for projecting films on a screen. In September-October, 1895, they debuted their projection device (projecting Kinetoscope films, but not using a Kinetoscope) at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, and then patented it.

In London in January of 1896, Birt Acres also developed a machine to project films, called a Kinetic Lantern. In the same year of 1896, another Englishman Robert William Paul also developed and manufactured a popular projector which he called a Theatrograph. He became a pioneering film producer in Britain through his The Northern Photographic Works company. In 1896, Edison's Company (because it was unable to produce a workable projector on its own) purchased an improved version of Thomas Armat's movie projection machine (the Phantascope, originally invented by C. Francis Jenkins in 1893), and renamed it the Vitascope. It was hailed as Edison's latest invention, although he had only commercialized the Phantascope. The Vitascope was the first commercially-successful celluloid motion picture projector in the US.

On April 23, 1896, Thomas Edison presented the first publically-projected Vitascope motion picture (with hand-tinting) in the US to a paying American audience on a screen, at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City (at 34th Street and Broadway), with his latest invention - the projecting kinetoscope or Vitascope. Customers watched the Edison Company's Vitascope project a ballet sequence in an amusement arcade during a vaudeville act. At the time, the Vitascope was showing films in only one location, this one in NYC, but that wouldn't last for long. The "Pathé-Frères" Company was founded in 1896 in Paris by Charles and Emile Pathè. By the next decade, it would become the largest producer of films in the world. Around 1906-7, only one-third of the films released in the US were American-made. Pathé-Frères was responsible for over one-third of the films shown on US screens.

By 1897, the 35 mm film gauge became widely accepted as the standard gauge for motion pictures, although American Mutoscope and other film companies continued to use other gauges. In 1909, the 35 mm width with 4 perforations per frame became accepted as the international standard film gauge. More Notable Films and Developments: The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), another filmed boxing match, reported to be 100 minutes in length (the longest film ever to be released by that date), and shown by the Veriscope Company, had its debut on May 22, 1897 at the Academy of Music in New York City. Some consider it the world's first feature film. It included all fourteen 3-minute rounds of the bout, in addition to a 5-minute introduction, and non-stop filming during the one-minute rest period between rounds. Running commentary was provided by an expert sports announcer from the side of the ring - the first of its kind.

One of the earliest projects the Edison Studios created (probably in July of 1897) was the advertising film Admiral Cigarette (1897), promoting the slogan "We All Smoke." The 28 second-long silent film was the first prototype commercial for the Admiral Cigarette company. Edison's film was the first advertising film, or commercial, to be submitted for copyright, on August 5, 1897. The Spanish-American War in 1898 drew camera operators to Cuba, but they were shut out by the US Army. Since they could not capture the battles on film, many went into studios and created them using models and painted backdrops -- the start of scale-model effects. The First Permanent Movie Theatres: Films were increasingly being shown as part of vaudeville shows, variety shows, and at fairgrounds or carnivals. Audiences would soon need larger theaters to watch screens with projected images from Vitascopes after the turn of the century, using stage and opera houses and music halls. The earliest 'movie theatres' were converted churches or halls, showing one-reelers (a 10-12 minute reel of film - the projector's reel capacity at the time).

The primitive films were usually more actualities and comedies. After showing films in a lakefront park, William "Pop" Rock and Walter Wainwright transformed a converted vacant store (at 623 Canal St.) in New Orleans, Louisiana into Vitascope Hall. On July 26, 1896, it became the first "storefront theater" in the US dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures, although it screened films for only two months. The theatre accommodated 400 people, and had two shows per day, with admission 10 cents. The world's first permanent movie theatre exclusively designed for showing motion pictures was the Edisonia Vitascope Hall, a 72 seat theatre which opened in downtown Buffalo, New York on Monday, October 19, 1896 in the Ellicott Square Building on Main Street. It was created by Buffalo-based entrepreneur Mitchell H. Mark, a supreme visionary of the future of motion picture theaters. It was likely that the opening night's showing including US premieres of the Lumiere films (see above), since Mark had contracted with the Lumieres (and Pathe Freres) in France to exhibit their films in the US.

The Vitascope Theater in Buffalo remained open for nearly two years. With his brother Moe, Mitchell Mark would open other theaters in Buffalo, as well as New York City, Boston and elsewhere. They were responsible for one of history's earliest "movie palaces," the 2800-seat Mark Strand Theater in NYC. Early Jewish film pioneer Sigmund Lubin (aka Siegmund Lubszynski) constructed the first purposely-built movie theater in West Philadelphia, PA for the National Export Exposition, in 1899. Lubin's Cineograph Theatre was a small, modest portable theatre built on the esplanade or midway of the fair. It was possibly the world's first structure erected expressly for the presentation of motion pictures. For ten cents, patrons could view "continuous shows" of the Spanish-American War, reproductions of boxing matches, and several of Lubin's own home-made productions. The film billed as "The Sensation of the Hour" was The Dreyfus Court Martial Scene. It was evidence of Lubin's early work as a motion picture distributor and exhibitor, to showcase his projectors, cameras, and films.

Later on in 1902 in downtown Los Angeles, Thomas L. Talley's storefront, 200-seat Electric Theater was another of the first permanent US theaters to exclusively exhibit movies - it charged patrons a dime, up from a nickel at the nickelodeons. Alice Guy (Blaché): The First Female Movie Director French-born Alice Guy (Blaché) started in the film business as a secretary for Léon Gaumont in 1894. In 1896, she joined Gaumont in his new company founded in Paris in 1895, the Gaumont Film Company, and began making primitive sound films when she was promoted to be the head of motion picture production at the studio. She is generally acknowledged as the world's first female director in the motion picture industry (with France's Gaumont Film Company). Her first film made in April of 1896 was the one-minute in length fictional film La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy). Some historians consider it the first ever narrative fiction film. She became one of the key figures in the systematic development of the narrative film.

Georges Melies: French Cinematic Magician Aside from technological achievements, another Frenchman who was a member of the Lumiere's viewing audience, Georges Melies, expanded development of film cinema with his own imaginative fantasy films. When the Lumiere brothers wouldn't sell him a Cinematographe, he developed his own camera (a version of the Kinetograph), and then set up Europe's first film studio in 1897. It was the first movie studio that used artificial illumination, a greenhouse-like structure that featured both a glazed roof and walls and a series of retractable blinds. It was an influential model on the development of future studios. Parisian French film-maker Georges Méliès first film based on a trick of substitution (one of the earliest instances of trick photography with stop-action - an early special effect) was Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin (1896) (aka The Conjuring of a Woman at the House of Robert Houdin).

The roots of horror films (and vampire films in particular) may also be traced back to Georges Méliès' two-minute short film Le Manoir du Diable (1896) (aka Manor/House of the Devil, or The Devil's Castle, or The Haunted Castle), although it was meant to be an amusing, entertaining film. Melies became the film industry's first film-maker to use artificially-arranged scenes to construct and tell a narrative story, with his most popular and influential film to date, Cendrillon (1899) (aka Cinderella). He created about 500 films (one-reelers usually) over the next 15 years (few of which survived), and screened his own productions in his theatre. Melies wrote, designed, directed, and acted in hundreds of his own fairy tales and science fiction films, and developed techniques such as stop-motion photography, double and multiple-exposures, time-lapse photography, "special effects" such as disappearing objects (using stop-trick or substitution photography), and dissolves/fades.

In late 1911, he contracted with French film company Pathe to finance and distribute his films, and then went out of business by 1913. An illusionist and stage magician, and a wizard at special effects, Melies exploited the new medium with a pioneering, 14-minute science fiction work, Le Voyage Dans la Lune - A Trip to the Moon (1902) . It was his most popular and best-known work, with about 30 scenes called tableaux. He incorporated surrealistic special effects, including the memorable image of a rocketship landing and gouging out the eye of the 'man in the moon.' Melies also introduced the idea of narrative storylines, plots, character development, illusion, and fantasy into film, including trick photography (early special effects), hand-tinting, dissolves, wipes, 'magical' super-impositions and double exposures, the use of mirrors, trick sets, stop motion, slow-motion and fade-outs/fade-ins. Although his use of the camera was innovative, the camera remained stationary and recorded the staged production from one position only. Further US Development: The key years in the development of the cinema in the U.S.

were in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the Edison Company was competing with a few other burgeoning movie companies. The major pioneering movie production companies, mostly on the East Coast, that controlled most of the industry were these rivals: the Edison Manufacturing Company - began producing films for the Kinetoscope in 1891, with headquarters and production facilities in West Orange, NJ (see above); formally became a company in 1894. Afterwards, Edison intensely fought for control of 'his' movie industry by harrassing, sue-ing, or buying patents from anyone he thought was threatening his company. the Selig Polyscope Company (originally called The W.N. Selig Company), was founded in 1896, in Chicago, Illinois by "Colonel" William Selig. Initially, the company specialized in slapstick comedies, "jungle" films, historical subjects, serials, travel films, and the early westerns starring Tom Mix. the American Vitagraph Company, formed by British-born Americans J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1896.

The company's first fictional film was The Burglar on the Roof, filmed and released in 1897. It soon became the largest film company, turning out 200 films a year. American Mutoscope Company, founded in 1895 in New York City, NY by disenchanted Edison worker William K. L. Dickson, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and pocket lighter inventor Elias Koopman. Their first motion picture machine was the Mutoscope - a peephole, flip-card device similar in size to a Kinetoscope. Instead of using film, a spinning set of photographs mounted on a drum inside the cabinet gave the impression of motion. This was followed by a projector - the Biograph Projector, that was first demonstrated in New York City in 1896. It was the first time projected images from an American film company were shown to an American movie theatre audience. They also devised a hand-cranked camera called the Mutograph (originally called the Biograph) that didn't use sprocket holes or perforations in the motion-picture film. The company released its first film in 1896, titled Empire State Express.

Soon, the American Mutoscope Company became the most popular film company in America. They were formally renamed the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1899 (and simply Biograph by 1909). They marketed their own films and their new Biograph projector, thus becoming the foremost motion picture company in the US. The American Mutoscope Company's The Haverstraw Tunnel (1897) became its most popular film - it was the first "phantom ride" film in which a camera was mounted on the front of a train, and recorded its passage into a tunnel. They were also known for many firsts: the early documentary Divers at Work on the Wreck of the Maine (1898) - the first film shot in Havana, Cuba at the location of the sunken warship W.L.K. Dickson's filming of Pope Leo XIII in Rome, M.H.

Pope Leo in a Chair (1898) - Leo XIII was the first Pope captured on film at the Vatican the first production company to be contracted by the White House, in 1899, and the first studio to record films of a living president, William McKinley in 1903, establishment of the first movie studio in the world (in NYC) to rely exclusively on artificial light makers of the first western film shot and produced in the West, A California Hold Up (1906) in 1906, Biograph's Florence Lawrence was the world's first "movie star" -- dubbed: "The Biograph Girl" the first major motion picture company in southern California to make an actual film in Los Angeles -- A Daring Hold-Up in Southern California (1906) makers of the first film shot specifically in the village north of LA known as "Hollywood" - a "Latino" melodrama titled In Old California (1910) makers of one of the first full-length feature films, D. W. Griffith's epic Judith of Bethulia (1914) Edison Vs.

Mutoscope: In May of 1898, Edison filed a patent-infringement suit against the American Mutoscope Company, claiming that the studio had infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera. [Edison’s competitors had developed other motion-picture devices, which became the Biograph and the Mutoscope.] After years of legal battles, in July of 1901, a U.S. Circuit Court in New York ruled that Biograph had infringed on Edison's patent claims. Biograph appealed the ruling, claiming it had a different camera design. The decision was reversed in March 1902 by a U.S. Court of Appeals. It ruled that Edison did not invent the motion-picture camera, but allowed that he had invented the sprocket system that moved perforated film through the camera. The new ruling essentially disallowed Edison from establishing a monopoly on motion picture apparatus - and ultimately on the making of films. By 1903, most studios made films using the 35mm format. (See more about the development of Biograph further below) "Moving pictures" were increasing in length, taking on fluid narrative forms, and being edited for the first time.

Two of the earliest westerns (or cowboy-related) films were both Edison Manufacturing Company films made at Black Maria: the one-shot (less than one minute short) Thomas Edison's Cripple Creek Bar Room Scene (1899) - with the 'first' western saloon setting Poker at Dawson City (1899) Breakthrough Films of Edwin S. Porter - the "Father of the Story Film": Inventor and former projectionist Edwin S. Porter (1869-1941), who in 1898 had patented an improved Beadnell projector with a steadier and brighter image, was also using film cameras to record news events. Porter was one of the resident Kinetoscope operators and directors at the Edison Company Studios in the early 1900s, who worked in different film genres. Porter was hired at Edison's Company in late 1900 and began making short narrative films, such as the 10-minute long Jack and the Beanstalk (1902).

He was responsible for directing the six-minute long The Life of an American Fireman (1903) - often alleged to be the first American documentary, docudrama, fictionalized biopic or realistic narrative film, with non-linear continuity. It combined re-enacted scenes, the dreamy thoughts of a sleeping fireman seen in a round iris or 'thought balloon', and documentary stock footage of actual fire scenes, and it was dramatically edited with inter-cutting (or jump-cutting) between the exterior and interior of a burning house. Edison was actually uncomfortable with Porter's editing techniques, including his use of close-ups to tell an entertaining story. The Great Train Robbery (1903) With the combination of film editing and the telling of narrative stories, Porter produced one of the most important and influential films of the time to reveal the possibility of fictional stories on film. The film was the one-reel, 14-scene, approximately 10-minute long The Great Train Robbery (1903) - it was based on a real-life train heist and was a loose adaptation of a popular stage production.

His visual film, made in New Jersey and not particularly artistic by today's standards - set many milestones at the time: it was the first narrative Western film with a storyline, and included various western cliches (a shoot-out, a robbery, a chase, etc.) that would be used by all future westerns [Note: the same claim was made for the earlier 21-minute Kit Carson (1903)] it was a ground-breaking film - and one of the earliest films to be shot out of chronological sequence, using revolutionary parallel cross-cutting (or parallel action) between two simultaneous events or scenes; it did not use fades or dissolves between scenes or shots it effectively used rear projection in an early scene (the image of a train seen through a window), and two impressive panning shots it was the first 'true' western, but not the first actual western [Note: Edison's Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene (1899) was probably the first western.] it was the first real motion picture smash hit, establishing the notion that film could be a commercially-viable medium it featured a future western film hero/star, Gilbert M.

Anderson (aka "Broncho Billy") In an effective, scary, full-screen closeup (placed at either the beginning or at the end of the film at the discretion of the exhibitor), a bandit shot his gun directly into the audience. The film also included exterior scenes, chases on horseback, actors that moved toward (and away from) the camera, a camera pan with the escaping bandits, and a camera mounted on a moving train. Porter also developed the process of film editing - a crucial film technique that would further the cinematic art. Most early films were not much more than short, filmed stage productions or records of live events. In the early days of film-making, actors were usually unidentified and not even trained actors. The earliest actors in movies, that were dubbed "flickers," supplemented their stage incomes by acting in moving pictures. Nickelodeons: Expanded Film Exhibition In the early 1900s, motion pictures ("flickers") were no longer innovative experiments. They soon became an escapist entertainment medium for the working-class masses, and one could spend an evening at the cinema for a cheap entry fee.

Kinetoscope parlors, lecture halls, and storefronts were often converted into nickelodeons, the first real movie theatres. The normal admission charge was a nickel (sometimes a dime). Nickel- was attached to the Greek word for theater -- "odeon." Hence the name nickelodeon. They usually remained open from early morning to midnight. The first nickelodeon, a small storefront theater or dance hall converted to view films, was opened in Pittsburgh by Harry Davis and John Harris in June of 1905, showing The Great Train Robbery . Urban, foreign-born, working-class, immigrant audiences loved the cheap form of entertainment and were the predominent cinema-goers. One-reel shorts, silent films, melodramas, comedies, or novelty pieces were usually accompanied with piano playing, sing-along songs, illustrated lectures, other kinds of 'magic lantern' slide shows, skits, penny arcades, or vaudeville-type acts. Standing-room only shows lasted between ten minutes and an hour. The demand for more and more films increased the volume of films being produced and raised profits for their producers.

But newspaper critics soon denounced their sensational programs (involving seduction, crime, sex and infidelity) as morally objectionable and as the cause of social unrest and criminal behavior - and they called for censorship. They also criticized the unsanitary and unsafe conditions in the often makeshift nickelodeons. By the early 20th century, nickelodeons were being transformed into more lavish movie palaces (see more below) in metropolitan areas. By 1908, there were approximately 8,000 neighborhood theatres. The First Feature-Length Films: In the early years of cinema, film producers were worried that the American public could not last through a film that was an hour long, thereby delaying the advent of feature films (60-90 minutes in length) in the US. According to most sources, the first continuous, full-length narrative feature film (defined as a commercially-made film at least an hour in length) was writer/director Charles Tait's five-reel biopic of a notorious outback folk hero and bushranger, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906, Australia), with a running time of between 60-70 minutes. Only fragments of the film survive to this day.

Australia was the only country set up to regularly produce feature-length films prior to 1911. [The film was remade many times, notably as director Tony Richardson's Ned Kelly (1970) with rock star Mick Jagger in the lead role, and as Ned Kelly (2003) with Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Naomi Watts.] The first US documentary re-creation, Sigmund Lubin's one-reel film The Unwritten Law (1907) (subtitled "A Thrilling Drama Based on the Thaw-White Case/Tragedy") dramatized the true-life murder -- on June 25, 1906 -- of prominent architect Stanford White by mentally unstable and jealous millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw over the affections of model/showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (who appeared as herself), Thaw's wife. The film was considered quite controversial for its sensational and scandalous story of murder and sex. [Alluring chorine Nesbit would become a brief sensation, and the basis for Richard Fleischer's biopic film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), portrayed by Joan Collins, and E.L.

Doctorow's musical and film Ragtime (1981), portrayed by an Oscar-nominated Elizabeth McGovern.] The first feature-length film made in Europe was from France - Michel Carre's L'Enfant Prodigue (1907, Fr.), an adaptation of a stage play, that premiered in Paris on June 20, 1907. The first feature-length film produced in the US was Vitagraph's Les Miserables (1909) (each reel of the four-reel production was released separately). A second feature film, Stuart Blackton's Vitagraph five-reel production titled The Life of Moses (1909) was also released in separate installments. The first feature-length film to be released in its entirety in the US was the 69-minute epic Dante's Inferno (1911, It.) (aka L’Inferno), inspired by Dante's 14th century poem The Divine Comedy. It opened in New York on December 10, 1911 at Gane’s Manhattan Theatre.

It was made by three directors Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro, and Adolfo Padovan, took two years to make, and cost over $180,000. The first US feature film to be shown in its entirety was H. A. Spanuth's five-reel production of Oliver Twist (1912). The four-reel silent costume drama Queen Elizabeth (1912, Fr.) (aka Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth) (starring Sarah Bernhardt) was the third film to be shown whole, in its US premiere in July at the Lyceum Theatre in NYC. The five-reel Richard III (1912) is thought to be the earliest surviving complete feature film made in the US. Although US production and exhibition of feature films started slowly in 1912, the next few years demonstrated tremendous growth when foreign competition (with often superior products) encouraged development.

Film History of the Pre-1920s Westerns Films Westerns Films Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Examples Westerns are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a nostalgic eulogy to the early days of the expansive, untamed American frontier (the borderline between civilization and the wilderness). They are one of the oldest, most enduring and flexible genres and one of the most characteristically American genres in their mythic origins. [The popularity of westerns has waxed and waned over the years. Their most prolific era was in the 1930s to the 1960s, and most recently in the 90s, there was a resurgence of the genre. They appear to be making an invigorating comeback (both on the TV screen and in theatres). Modern movie remakes, such as 3:10 To Yuma (2007) and the Coen Brothers' True Grit (2010) have also paid homage to their mid-20th century predecessors.] See all Greatest Westerns Title Screens This indigenous American art form focuses on the frontier West that existed in North America.

Westerns are often set on the American frontier during the last part of the 19th century (1865-1900) following the Civil War, in a geographically western (trans-Mississippi) setting with romantic, sweeping frontier landscapes or rugged rural terrain. However, Westerns may extend back to the time of America's colonial period or forward to the mid-20th century, or as far geographically as Mexico. A number of westerns use the Civil War, the Battle of the Alamo (1836) or the Mexican Revolution (1910) as a backdrop. The western film genre often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilization, or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier. Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranch houses, the isolated homestead, the saloon, the jail, the livery stable, the small-town main street, or small frontier towns that are forming at the edges of civilization. They may even include Native American sites or villages.

Other iconic elements in westerns include the hanging tree, stetsons and spurs, saddles, lassos and Colt .45's, bandannas and buckskins, canteens, stagecoaches, gamblers, long-horned cattle and cattle drives, prostitutes (or madams) with a heart of gold, and more. Very often, the cowboy has a favored horse (or 'faithful steed'), for example, Roy Rogers' Trigger, Gene Autry's Champion, William Boyd's (Hopalong Cassidy) Topper, the Lone Ranger's Silver and Tonto's Scout. Western films have also been called the horse opera, the oater (quickly-made, short western films which became as commonplace as oats for horses), or the cowboy picture. The western film genre has portrayed much about America's past, glorifying the past-fading values and aspirations of the mythical by-gone age of the West. Over time, westerns have been re-defined, re-invented and expanded, dismissed, re-discovered, and spoofed.

In the late 60s and early 70s (and in subsequent years), 'revisionistic' Westerns that questioned the themes and elements of traditional/classic westerns appeared (such as Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) , Arthur Penn's Little Big Man (1970), Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and later Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) ). Westerns Film Plots: Usually, the central plot of the western film is the classic, simple goal of maintaining law and order on the frontier in a fast-paced action story. It is normally rooted in archetypal conflict - good vs. bad, virtue vs. evil, white hat vs. black hat, man vs. man, new arrivals vs. Native Americans (inhumanely portrayed as savage Indians), settlers vs. Indians, humanity vs. nature, civilization vs. wilderness or lawlessness, schoolteachers vs. saloon dance-hall girls, villains vs. heroes, lawman or sheriff vs. gunslinger, social law and order vs. anarchy, the rugged individualist vs. the community, the cultivated East vs.

West, settler vs. nomad, and farmer vs. industrialist to name a few. Often the hero of a western meets his opposite "double," a mirror of his own evil side that he has to destroy. Typical elements in westerns include hostile elements (often Native Americans), guns and gun fights (sometimes on horseback), violence and human massacres, horses, trains (and train robberies), bank robberies and holdups, runaway stagecoachs, shoot-outs and showdowns, outlaws and sheriffs, cattle drives and cattle rustling, stampedes, posses in pursuit, barroom brawls, 'search and destroy' plots, breathtaking settings and open landscapes (the Tetons and Monument Valley, to name only a few), and distinctive western clothing (denim, jeans, boots, etc.). Western heroes are often local lawmen or enforcement officers, ranchers, army officers, cowboys, territorial marshals, or a skilled, fast-draw gunfighter. They are normally masculine persons of integrity and principle - courageous, moral, tough, solid and self-sufficient, maverick characters (often with trusty sidekicks), possessing an independent and honorable attitude (but often characterized as slow-talking).

The Western hero could usually stand alone and face danger on his own, against the forces of lawlessness (outlaws or other antagonists), with an expert display of his physical skills (roping, gun-play, horse-handling, pioneering abilities, etc.).

Subgenres of Westerns: There are many subgenres of the typical or traditional western, to name a few: the epic Western (i.e., The Big Country (1958)) the 'singing cowboy' Western (films of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, see below) the "spaghetti" Western (the "Man With No Name" trilogy of films by Sergio Leone) the "noir" Western (i.e., Pursued (1947)) the "contemporary" Western (i.e., Hud (1963)) the "revisionistic" Western (i.e., Little Big Man (1970), Dances With Wolves (1990)) the "comedy" Western (i.e., Cat Ballou (1965), Blazing Saddles (1974) ) the "post-apocalyptic" Western (i.e., Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981-2), The Postman (1997)) the "science-fiction" or "space" Western (i.e., Outland (1981)) Influences on the Western: In many ways, the cowboy of the Old West was the American version of the Japanese sam

urai warrior, or the Arthurian knight of medieval times.

[No wonder that westerns were inspired by samurai and Arthurian legends, i.e., Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) served as the prototype for Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), and Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) was remade as John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960). Le Mort D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory also inspired much of Shane (1953) - a film with a mythical western hero acting like a noble knight in shining leather in its tale of good vs. evil.] They were all bound by legal codes of behavior, ethics, justice, courage, honor and chivalry.

Western Film Roots: The roots of the film western are found in many disparate sources, often of literary origins: folk music of the colonial period James Fenimore Cooper's novels such as his 1826 story The Last of the Mohicans (re-made as a feature film at least three times - Clarence Brown's 1920 version, a 1932 version starring Harry Carey, and George Seitz' 1936 version with Randolph Scott, and most recently as the popular film The Last of the Mohicans (1992) starring Daniel Day Lewis as the heroic white frontiersman scout named Hawkeye, raised as a Mohican) Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail (1849) Samuel Clemens' (Mark Twain) Roughing It (1872) Bret Harte's short stories dime novels about Western heroes Owen Wister's influential The Virginian, published in 1902, the first modern western novel prolific Zane Grey's (1875-1939) 60+ novels that inspired dozens of films, including his best-known western Riders of the Purple Sage (1918, 1925, 193

1, 1941); also The Rainbow Trail (1918, 1925), George Seitz's The Vanishing American (1925) - the first film made in Monument Valley, Rangle River (1937), The Mysterious Rider (1933, 1938), Lone Star Ranger (1942), Nevada (1927, 1936, 1944), Western Union (1941), Gunfighters (1947), and Red Canyon (1949) other mythologies (tales of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, Gen.

George A. Custer, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson), and outlaws (such as the James Brothers, the original Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Billy the Kid) screen cowboy Gene Autry's "Cowboy Code" (or Cowboy Commandments) written in the late 1940s - a collection of moralistic principles and values that cowboys reportedly live by, including such tenets as: the cowboy never shoots first or takes unfair advantage, always tells the truth, must help people in distress, and is a patriot The most often-portrayed western heroes on screen have been (in descending order): William Frederick Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), William Bonney ("Billy the Kid"), Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickok, Gen. George A. Custer, and Wyatt Earp. Silent Westerns: The western was among the first film genres, growing in status alongside the development of Hollywood's studio production system. There were only a few great silent westerns, although the best ones established some of the archetypes that are part of the genre even today.

The earliest westerns (silent films without the sound of gunfire, horse's hoofbeats, and the cattle trail) are gems of American history. A few of the earliest western-like films were two shorts from Thomas Edison's Manufacturing Company: the less-than 1 minute-long Cripple Creek Bar Room Scene (1899) (with its prototypical western bar-room scene, and a barmaid played by a man) Poker at Dawson City (1899) (set during the Alaska Gold Rush, about a crooked poker game with flagrant cheating that led to a fight) Edwin S. Porter's Pioneering Western: But the 'first real movie' or commercially narrative film that gave birth to the genre was Edwin S. Porter's pioneering western The Great Train Robbery (1903) . Porter (named 'the father of the story film') was responsible for the one-reel, 10-minute long film, shot - curiously - on the East Coast (New Jersey and Delaware) rather than the Western setting of Wyoming.

[The first westerns were shot, until 1906, on the East Coast.] Porter had also directed and filmed Edison's short publicity western-themed film A Romance of the Rail (1903). Almost all the essential elements or conventions of typical westerns were included: good guys vs. bad guys, a robbery or wrong-doing, a chase or pursuit, and a final showdown, all in a natural setting. The film ended (or began) with a stunning close-up (the first!) of a gunman (George Barnes) firing directly into the camera - and audience. It was the most commercially successful film of the pre-nickelodeon era. Porter's film was a milestone in film-making for its storyboarding of the script, the first use of title cards, an ellipsis, and a panning shot, and for its cross-cutting editing techniques. One of its stars with multiple roles, Gilbert M. Anderson (Max Aronson), later took the name "Broncho Billy" Anderson and became famous as the first western film hero - the genre's first cowboy. As in other genres, westerns quickly became character-driven and stars began to be developed.

Porter's other film in the same year was a non-Western, Life of An American Fireman (1903) featuring more overlapping action and cross-cut editing, and a last-minute rescue of a mother and child in a burning building. And Edison's A Race for Millions (1907) also featured typical western plot elements - a high-noon shootout, and claim-jumping. In fact, a number of major film studios were making westerns as early as 1907, and by the end of the first decade of the century, about twenty percent of all of Hollywood's films were westerns. Other Early Westerns and Their Directors/Producers: The American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. claimed to have made the first western one year before Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903) . A few early westerns copyrighted by Biograph were the 21-minute long Kit Carson (1903) and the 15-minute The Pioneers (1903). The first western produced in the West was Biograph's A California Hold Up (1906).

Note: The first sagebrush sagas were either shot on soundstages or made on the East Coast, until the wide expanse of the West opened up for on-location shoots. D. W. Griffith dabbled in silent westerns at Biograph Studios between 1908 and 1913, producing such pictures as: In Old California (1910), Griffith's first western-filmed western, followed by The Twisted Trail (1910) with Mary Pickford The Last Drop of Water (1911), with the western's first characteristic scenes of a wagon train siege and a cavalry rescue the innovatively-filmed Fighting Blood (1911) about conflict between white settlers and Sioux Indians in the Dakota territory of 1899 and Griffith's last major Biograph western filmed in S. California, titled The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1914), a two-reel pre-cursor to his most (in)famous landmark film, Birth of a Nation (1915) , with Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh The first feature-length western was Lawrence B. McGill's six-reel Arizona (1913).

The first film to feature an all-Native American cast was Hiawatha (1913), made by the Colonial Motion Picture Corporation and based on Longfellow's poem. Young Cecil B. De Mille's first motion picture was The Squaw Man (1914), usually credited as the first feature filmed entirely in Hollywood. [De Mille remade the film in 1918 and 1931.] Even in the early days of the film industry, some real-life cowboys and legendary western figures appeared in films: Wyatt Earp in The Half-Breed (1919) Buffalo Bill Cody in The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (1917) Thomas Ince (1882-1924), known for inventing the studio system, was the first studio executive who embraced the western in the teen years. He arrived in California in 1911, where he produced detailed scripts with new situations and characters for a vast number of classic westerns.

In 1912, his Bison Company production studios (known as Inceville) purchased the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch and the Wild West Show to use their props and performers for his assembly-line, mass-produced films. In the early 1910s, famed director John Ford's older brother Francis was directing and starring in westerns in California for producer Ince, before joining Universal and Carl Laemmle in 1913. The First Westerns Super-Star of the Silent Era: William S. Hart Ince was responsible for discovering and bringing Shakespearean actor William S. Hart (1870-1946) to prominent stardom by signing him up in his New York Motion Picture Company. Hart served as both actor and director after moving to Hollywood, and was often portrayed as a "good bad man" on the screen (with his Pinto pony named Fritz).

He emerged as one of the greatest Western heroes in the mid-1910s, until the release of his last film in 1925: The Disciple (1915) The Taking of Jim McLane (1915) Devil's Double (1916) The Return of Draw Egan (1916) Truthful Tulliver (1916) The Narrow Trail (1917), Hart's first feature production for Paramount Branding Broadway (1918), set in modern-day New York City! Riddle Gawne (1918) Sand (1920), reportedly Pres.

Woodrow Wilson's favorite Hart film The Testing Block (1920) The Toll Gate (1920), Hart's first film with his own production company The Three Word Brand (1921), with Hart playing three roles White Oak (1921) Wild Bill Hickok (1923) Singer Jim McKee (1924) Tumbleweeds (1925), Hart's best-known and greatest western, by director King Baggot and from UA - about the Cherokee Strip (Oklahoma) Gold Rush; the film's title referred to a breed of roaming cowboys

Question: What was the first movie western called?
Answer: Kit Carson