Exciting old movies including the first one ever made

[Phil C]

I will add more to this thread but thank goodness we have the copies we had. Many of the old movies even ones in sound were not carefully preserved so they have been lost forever due to thoughtlessness and lack of future vision by some.
Fortunately many were saved and are available on youtube and elsewhere. I can't post the lengths because there are always one or two that comment on it with bad language but I can tell you how to find them.
The first movie ever made was Roundbay Garden Scene and made by Louis Le Prince of France. The movie (probably more of a film than movie but I will refer to it both as movie and film) was made in Leeds, England. Leeds is a city located in north central England and is a large city though not as large as London and the population now is between 700,000 to 800,000 people estimated. Prince shot the movie on about October 14, 1888. It has his son and mother in law and two friends outside by a garden. You can see it on youtube. Just go to youtube and on search type in 1888 - Roundbay Garden Scene. There are some nonsense videos there but for right now I hope you go to the original one as you were meant to see. This movie is the first one that used a camera that recorded motion.
The other movie I would like to to see is at youtube and on search there type in 1888 - Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge. This movie is thought to have been made two weeks after the Garden movie but it may have been in the summer of 1889.
Sadly Pince disappeared two years later and many think it was a suicide as he was in financial difficulty but it was never known for sure.
I hope you enjoy the movies. They got rave reviews by the commentors as you can say and nearly all of them were positive and they were in awe of these great movies as well as the achievement.
American inventor Thomas A. Edison was to make more movies in the 1890s as well as others and soone the industry was born. By the 1900s short movies were popular in theatres and eventually longer and more epic silent movies were to come until their peack in the 1920s. Sound came in 1928 and the industry moved along. Soon Gone with the Wind and Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston came along. This was just a few of the great ones that were to come which also include Titanic just to name one. The humble start of these movies were to be the forefather of a great multi-billion dollar industry. Maybe even larger world wide.
Thank goodness they are preserved. Enjoy.

[Phil C]

Some more to watch and they aren't long but they are powerful were made in the early 1900s.
One that you see by going to youtube and on search type in 1908 The Thieving Hand. This movie is about a begger that gets a new limb but it has devestating results. This one is not for the squimesh.
The other one is at search on youtube type 1904 The Gay Shoe Clerk in which a shoe clerk learns to not mix business with romance. Bear in mind that the word gay in these old times did not mean what it often means today. It referred to someone that was merry and happy and enjoyed life. Still this short movie was a shocker at the time and packs a whallop today. The ending may leave you devestated also.

Still with what we have seen in modern times they shouldn't be too tough. Enjoy.

[crzyjournalist03]

Hey Phil, do you know why we call them movies?

Because when they were first invented, people thought of them as moving pictures, and called them "movies".

You may have heard of the phrase "talkies" being used for the first years of movies that contained words rather than text. These were named in a similar fashion.

[Phil C]

Interesting crzy and thank you. When you go to youtube you can on the search there type in The First Movie Ever Made and the First Song Ever Recorded. The First movie of course refers to the Roundhay Garden and the song is the 1860 song I have already posted on another thread. But included is Edweard Muybridge's A Horse in Motion which was done 10 years before in 1878. It is called A Horse in Motion. However it was not done by a motion picture camera but by a series of photographs take of a horse that ran 10 feet. I don't know how he did it but he had each photo set in motion and it looked just like a moving horse which is amazing. I have seen several type movies like that which were done by speeding up a series of photographs but haven't figured out how they did it.

[Phil C]

Ben Hur has several versions and of course the best is the one with Charleton Heston made in 1959 and fortunately it is shown on TCM fairly often so you can watch out and catch it when you can.
The main 1925 version is shown once in a while and it stars Ramon Navarro. It is a silent movie directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It is shown on TCM once in a while but you can watch it on youtube also just on search type in Ben-Hur Part 1 1925.

Another one not as well known is the 1907 version which is about 12 minutes long. Just go to Youtube and on search type in Ben-Hur part 1 1907. Of course it isn't as good as the others and much is left out but remember it was made in 1907 and just seeing it for the history interest is worth it.