Credited as the earliest complete feature-length American film known to still exist and restored by the American Film Institute, "The Life and Death of King Richard III" is otherwise of little value. Rarely is Shakespeare nearly as boring. Yes, the film is a symptom of its time; I also watched "Queen Elizabeth" (1912) today (it wasn't a very good day), and both are arid and static adaptations from the stage, histrionic acting included, but without sound, or any other qualities of the theatre. Films such as these, however, were coincident with films by others like D.W. Griffith; one can easily see which was advancing the medium and which was hampering it.
