Abstract
This chapter’s examines Smith’s ‘edited’ films of 1899–1903. It begins by placing this period in the context of his association with the Warwick Trading Company and then turns to his film The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) which appears to be his first multi-shot, narrative film. It is positioned in relation to the early history of film editing, the phantom ride and railway culture. The combination of Smith’s single shot The Kiss in the Tunnel with a phantom ride demonstrated a new sense of continuity and simultaneity across three shots. He followed it with a series of edited films which are arguably his most important works: Grandma’s Reading Glass, As Seen Through the Telescope, Let Me Dream Again and Mary Jane’s Mishap.
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Notes
- 1.
McKernan (2013) provides a valuable overview of Urban’s career. Darling’s workshop was at 25 Ditchling Rise, Brighton. The camera referred to is likely to be the Warwick Bioscope Camera, which was designed by Darling with Alfred Wrench, manufactured by Darling and first advertised in late 1899. See Barnes for his understanding of the nature and origins of this camera (Barnes vol. 2, 1996, pp. 167, 170–173).
- 2.
Barnes mistakenly uses the figure £8,278 4s 3d as Smith’s total income from 1897 to 1900. (Barnes vol. 5, 1997, p. 40.) Found at the bottom of the penultimate page of the 1900 section of the Cash Book, it is the figure only for Smith’s total income in 1900. From 1898 to 1900, Smith’s profit was, respectively, £306, £1,438 and £3,132 making a total of £4,876. To place these figures in perspective, Rowntree calculated that an urban poor family in England in 1899 subsisted on a yearly sum of just over £50 and the more comfortable working class lived on a yearly income of £100 (Hobsbawm 1969, pp. 160–161). To arrive at present-day values by using the Bank of England’s Calculator, these figures can be multiplied by a factor of 116. This would set the working-class income of £100 at £11,684 and Smith’s cumulative figure of £4876 at £569,750.
Bank of England. 2018. Inflation Calculator. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator [Accessed: 21 September 2018].
- 3.
The British Journal of Photography, Supplement, 15 December, 1899, vol. XLVI, 795.
- 4.
Low’s understanding of the relationship between Smith and the WTC was as follows: ‘In 1900 Smith ceased production on his own account, and started to work for the Warwick Trading Company, with a two-year contract to print some fifty films (i.e. about 5000 ft.) per day. In addition, a studio was built for him at St. Anne’s [sic] Well Garden’ (Low and Manvell 1948, p. 76).
- 5.
Warwick, Sept. 1900: photographs of Smith with his title (p. 72) and his one-storey film processing works at St Ann’s Well (p. 75).
- 6.
- 7.
See Amy Sargeant’s essay (2000) on faces, facials and the performance of letter reading in early cinema.
- 8.
Salt’s article ‘Cut and Shuffle’ (1996) provides a useful overview of the early history of the edited film. The key works he identifies, organised chronologically, are: The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (Edison , 1895), Escamotage d’une Dame Chez Robert-Houdin (Méliès, 1896), Come Along, Do! (Paul 1898), La Lune à un Mètre (Méliès, 1898), The Kiss in the Tunnel (Smith, 1899), Grandma’s Reading Glass (Smith, 1900) and Attack on a Chinese Mission (Williamson, 1900). There may well be other significant films which are not part of his chronology, but for the purposes of this particular study, Salt’s work establishes an international context for the analysis of the films of Smith and Williamson and their contributions to this early history of film form. Salt (1983) offers a more detailed account of this history. The Edison films of 1895 which used stop motion are The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, Joan of Arc and Indian Scalping Scene (Musser 1997, pp. 189–190, 194).
- 9.
The ‘others’ refers to the analyses of Méliès by Gaudreault, Frazer and Malthête-Méliès, all of which are cited by Gunning (1990b) in his article.
- 10.
‘The Brighton Alhambra’, Brighton Herald, 28 January 1899, 3. This show included Smith’s Cinderella (1898), The Astronomer’s Dream and either Smith’s Faust and Mephistopheles (1898) or Méliès’ Faust and Marguerite (1897). This Alhambra review is the only reference to the exhibition of Smith films in Brighton to have been found in the Brighton press for the period 1897–1900.
- 11.
Bottomore (1988) outlines the role played by non-fiction films in the development of the edited film in the late 1890s.
- 12.
Robert Paul, Animated Photograph Films, List No. 15, August 1898.
- 13.
The Era, 30 October 1897, 19.
- 14.
The Music Hall and Theatre Review, 29 October 1897, 11; as quoted by Brown (Brown and Anthony 1999, p. 50). In Smith’s Cash Book, the entry for 29 May 1898 has the words, ‘Phantom Ride’. There is no further mention of this film, which suggests that it was unsuccessful. From October 1897 phantom rides had become a regular feature of the Biograph’s exhibitions in London and formed part of its Brighton show in September 1898.
- 15.
Barnes provides the WTC’s description of Méliès’ Cendrillon (Barnes vol. 4, 1996, pp. 178–179).
- 16.
‘Brighton Kinematograph Factory—Its Wonders and Humours’, Brighton Herald, 14 Oct. 1899, 2.
- 17.
In Kuleshov’s, Art of the Cinema (1929), he described montage [editing] as, ‘the foundation of cinematography’, and through it the ability to craft a ‘creative geography’. He said, ‘It became apparent that through montage it was possible to create a new earthly terrain that did not exist anywhere’ (Levaco 1974, p. 52).
- 18.
The earliest known date for the exhibition of a film entitled The Kiss in the Tunnel is 20 March 1899 by the Anglo-American Bio-Tableaux at the Canterbury Theatre, London (source: Canterbury Theatre programme, 20 March 1899; Barnes Collection). The exhibitor Walter Gibbons and his Anglo-American Bio-Tableaux had a close relationship with the WTC as he used a Warwick Bioscope projector and WTC films. This film is therefore likely to be the Smith film; however, if it was exhibited on this date with a phantom ride, it could not have been the Hepworth film as it was not made until the summer of 1899.
- 19.
L. T. Meade, ‘A Horrible Fright’, in The Strand, vol. 8, July–December, 1894, 428–429.
- 20.
‘The Railway Outrage’, The Argus, Brighton, 25 July 1896, 3. The railway age began in Brighton in 1841 with the opening of the route to London. Five twin-track tunnels were constructed on this mainline including Merstham (1830 yards), Balcombe (1133 yards) and Clayton (2266 yards).
- 21.
Warwick Supplement, 1900, 164; reprinted in Barnes, vol. 5, 1997, p. 199.
- 22.
The Darling ‘Special Effects’ Camera of 1899/1900 (Hove Museum & Art Gallery) has an aperture plate designed to produce a matte shot effect which could represent the viewpoint of either a telescope or magnifying glass. It suggests that Smith used this type of plate and this model of film camera in the making of Grandma’s Reading Glass (1900) and As Seen Through the Telescope (1900). Christie’s Catalogue describes the camera (Christie’s 2001, pp. 12–13).
- 23.
Warwick Supplement, 1900, 164; reprinted in Barnes, vol. 5, 1997, 199–200. All quotations related to this film are from this source.
- 24.
Two hand-coloured prints by Thomas Rowlandson in the Royal Collection, Summer Amusement at Margate, or a Peep at the Mermaids (1813) and Progress of Gallantry, or Stolen Kisses Sweetest (1814), depict elderly pot-bellied men at the seaside peering into their pocket telescopes and spyglasses. These prints make explicit the role that optical instruments played in the voyeuristic ‘hunt’ for a ‘satisfying’ view.
- 25.
Double-illustration (or diptych) cartoons, where two images appear side-by-side and depict either before-and-after states or sequential action, were common before film and could be found in the popular weeklies such as Punch in the 1890s. See for example: ‘So it Seems!’, Punch, 6 June 1896, 267.
- 26.
Warwick, Sept. 1900, 149; reprinted in Barnes, vol. 5, 1997, pp. 198–199.
- 27.
The song’s lyrics are found at: Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. 2018. Let Me Dream Again. [ONLINE] Available at: https://gsarchive.net/sullivan/songs/dream/again.html. [Accessed 24 September 2018.]
A contemporary reference to the song is found at: Brighton & Hove Guardian, 12 December 1900, 3.
- 28.
See: Musser 1991, pp. 245–247. Proof of Smith’s early penetration into the American film market is found in the proposed contract of 1900, as cited by Musser, between the American Vitagraph Company and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Of the 246 non-Edison films listed within it, 117 were of English origin and of these 56 were from the WTC and 29 from Smith. Specific film titles are not named (Musser 1983, pp. 58–60).
- 29.
The Era, 14 February 1903, 36. Little is known about Smith’s glass house studio at St Ann’s Well. It is depicted on the Warwick Trading Company’s letterhead of July 1902 as are the words, ‘G. Albert Smith, FRAS, Manager, Brighton Studio & Film Works’. It was probably erected in 1901 and Smith’s Mary Jane’s Mishap and Dorothy’s Dream were made within it. It was in operation for no more than two years and there is no evidence of its use after the Smiths’ departure for Southwick in the summer of 1903.
- 30.
Durham County Advertiser, 18 December 1903, 1.
- 31.
catalogue description; Charles Urban Trading Co., 1903, pp. 106–107.
- 32.
Catalogue description: Charles Urban Trading Co., 1903, p. 111.
- 33.
The Era, 12 December 1903, 36.
- 34.
‘Marvels in the Queen’s Hall’, Edinburgh Evening News, 22 December 1903, 2.
- 35.
Found on the penultimate page of the 1899 section of Smith’s Cash Book (BFI).
- 36.
See Barnes for a description of the Biokam and its rival, the Birtac (Barnes vol. 4, 1996, pp. 23–26 and 170–177).
- 37.
‘Brighton Kinematograph Factory—Its Wonders and Humours’, Brighton Herald, 14 October 1899, 2.
- 38.
Sea Bathing, 17.5 mm, part of the Will Day Collection at the Centre National de la Cinématographie, Paris.
- 39.
‘Cyclists Carnival at St Ann’s Well’, Brighton Herald, 29 June 1901, 3.
- 40.
advertisement for St Ann’s Well, Brighton Herald, 1 August 1903, 4.
Resources and Bibliography
Film Catalogues
Paul, Robert. 1898. Animated Photograph Films, List No. 15. London. [London: BFI Library].
Books and Articles
Barnes, John. 1996. Pioneers of the British Film, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England 1894–1901, Volume Three: 1898. Exeter: University of Exeter Press; first pub.: London: Bishopsgate Press, 1988). [The first edition of 1988 was dated mistakenly as 1983].
———. 1997. The Beginnings of the Cinema in England 1894–1901, Volume Five: 1900. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
———. 1998. The Beginnings of the Cinema in England 1894–1901, Volume One: 1894–1896, 2nd ed. Exeter: University of Exeter Press; 1st edn. London: David & Charles, 1976.
Brown, Richard. 1998. ‘England Is Not Big Enough…’ American Rivalry in the Early English Film Business: The Case of “Warwick v Urban”, 1903. Film History 10 (1): 21–34.
Brown, Richard, and Barry Anthony. 1999. A Victorian Film Enterprise: The History of the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, 1897–1915. Trowbridge: Flicks Books.
Christie’s. 2001. Motion Picture Cameras, Tuesday 16 October 2001. London: Christie’s. [sales catalogue].
Gunning, Tom. 1990. Primitive Cinema: A Frame-up? Or the Trick’s on Us. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker. London: British Film Institute.
Hanson, Miriam. 1994. Babel & Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1969. The Pelican Economic History of Britain, Vol. 3, From 1750 to the Present Day, Industry and Empire. London: Pelican Books.
Hoffmann, Heinrich. 1909. Struwwelpeter. London: George Routledge & Sons.
Levaco, Ronald, ed. 1974. Kuleshov on Film, Writings of Lev Kuleshov. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Low, Rachael, and Roger Manvell. 1948. The History of the British Film 1896–1906. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Malthête, Jacques. 1996. Méliès, Images et Illusions. Paris: Exporégie.
McKernan, Luke, ed. 1999. A Yank in Britain, The Lost Memoirs of Charles Urban, Film Pioneer. Hastings: The Projection Box.
———. 2013. Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-Fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897–1925. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Musser, Charles. 1983. The American Vitagraph, 1897–1901. In Film Before Griffith, ed. John Fell, 58–60. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
———. 1991. Before the Nickelodeon, Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
———. 1997. Edison Motion Pictures, 1890–1900: An Annotated Filmography. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Salt, Barry. 1983. Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis. London: Starword.
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Gray, F. (2019). Smith’s Edited Films, 1899–1903. In: The Brighton School and the Birth of British Film. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17505-4_7
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