Monkeyshines, No. 1

Not much of anything, this "film" is a ghostly image of (probably) G. Sacco Albanese, a worker at the Edison Laboratories. It was shot by William Heise and W.K.L. Dickson, the co-inventor of the Kinetoscope, along with Thomas Edison.

The film is only a few seconds long, and it is hard to distinguish what, of anything, is going on. Of course, with being the first American motion picture, and one of the first ever, it has significant historical merit.

I rated it a 2 of out 10. Only its historical value gives it more than a 1.

In 1888, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison had an idea that would serve as the basis to what we now call "movies", that idea was the Kinetoscope and soon a new source of entertainment would be created by the wild imagination of Edison's team. According to history, Edison heard rumors about the invention of motion pictures (they were indeed invented in 1888 by Louis Le Prince in Leeds, England) and quickly his mind began to craft his very own devise to achieve the same effect. Edison figured out that the images had the illusion of movement because they were sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter, and soon put the conceptual idea on paper; however, it wouldn't be Edison who would transform Kinetoscope from an idea to a reality, the man in charge of the project would be one of Edison's most rusted workers, a Scottish man named William K.L. Dickson. The series of short films codenamed "Monkeyshines" were Dickson's first attempts to produce motion pictures.

The "Monkeyshines" films were three experimental movies shot in the Edison laboratories in order to test Kinetograph, a camera invented to shot the movies that would appear in the Kinetoscope. With the collaboration of William Heise (who would become a prolific director of Kinetoscope films), Dickson shot one of Edison's workers in front of the camera doing gestures and movements. As actual experiments of their work, this movies do not have a plot or a theme, and only consist of Edison's workers moving in front of the camera to see if their images were captured. Due to age and the poor quality of this early experiments, it is impossible to know who appears in each movie, although it is often considered that G. Sacco Albanese is the one appearing in "Monkeyshines, No. 1". (some say that it is actually John Ott, but the debate continues)

While it was never released to the public (Dickson's second movie, "Dickson Greeting" has the honor of being the first American movie to be shown), "Monkeyshines, No. 1" is indeed the very first movie shot in the United States, marking the birth of the Kinetoscope and the beginning of the age of cinema as entertainment. After this monumental invention, Dickson would dedicate his most of his work in improving his machine (including an attempt to add sound!) although he also started making the kind of short films the people wanted to see in what was now known as "The Peep Show machine". While not exactly real cinema, William K.L. Dickson's amazing invention would be another big step ahead in what would culminate in 1895, with the Lumière brothers' invention of the Cinématographe. 7/10

Being made in 1890, "Monkeyshines, No. 1" is the first true film ever created in the United States (or at least believed by many to be the first, just as "Roundhay Garden Scene" by Louis le Prince is believed to be the world's oldest celluloid film). In many ways, it's nothing particularly exciting when it comes to content. It did not, like "Men Boxing", begin any new film genre at the time; nor did it attempt to show a display of skill like "Newark Athlete". Instead, like all of the films in the Monkeyshines trilogy, it merely served as a test for the Kinetoscope camera that Edison was hoping to use in the future to publicize the motion picture. As such, it is no surprise that the result of this test is not a big achievement. More changes had to be made to the invention before it could capture true motion on film in the ways we are accustomed to.

Instead of a clear view of the action and definite motion like movies are today, the footage that makes up "Monkeyshines, No 1" is very difficult to decipher. The character seen to move before the lens is blurry, phantom-like and not at all detailed. Nor is the movement he performs very easy to watch. It is apparent the person was doing something with his arms. Waving? Gesticulating? From a horror buff's point of view, he looks more like some strange morphing being who can change shape at will. That's how hard it is to understand this experiment.

But there was hope. Edison obviously wasn't satisfied with the results of his invention yet, and needed to alter the Kinetoscope yet in order to change the look. The results of his later proceedings were the other two Monkeyshines films, 2 and 3. Number 2 already appeared much improved over number 1, and number 3 (which is either lost or unrestored) probably also showed some new details. Slowly, these camera tests continued to be made and improved upon until the great inventor finally debuted his invention in 1893, with "Horse Shoeing" and "Blacksmith Scene", which would publicize the motion picture industry for the first time in America.

(Note: It has been debated who the actor is. Some say John Ott, some say G. Sacco Albanese. Both were workers at Edison's factories).

From Shadow Plays to the Phenakistoscope, to the phantasmagoria of the 18th Century 'Magic Lanterns' or the spinning slits of the Phenakistoscope invented by Joseph Plateau, and the simultaneous independent invention, in 1833, by the Austrian Simon Stampfer (Stroboscope). In 1867, the Zoetrope lantern astonished the world till Muybridge's Zoopraxiscope device of 1879. The Zoopraxiscope's photographic rudiments inspired legendary inventors to invent. Thomas Edison came up with the Kinetoscope and the designer W.K.L.Dixon (sometimes spelt as Dickson) worked for Edison in the USA and then in 1894 moved to England where he helped develop the Mutoscope machines. Thus, finally, we arrive at Dickson's 'The MonkeyShines'. Dickson is significantly a part of Film history because these film shorts were widely acclaimed as The first 'movie shows', or moving picture shows. However, The Lumiere brothers in France, Auguste and Louis, produced what is arguably the first real cinema show with the presentation of their Lumiere Cinematographe to a paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Paris on 28th December 1895. The only real brouhaha between these two landmark moments in history being the issue of pioneering and the attributing factors of being billed as the 'inventors' of modern film and cinema.

As much as it's certainly interesting to see history from 132 years ago, this is one of the weakest footages, as it's very hard to tell what's going on. Newark Athlete and the Blacksmith Scene make for far more interesting viewing experiences.