Born Today July 6: Annabelle Moore (Whitford)

1878-1961

Subject of several famous Edison dance shorts Annabelle Whitford, who used the name "Annabelle Moore" when performing (it was reportedly her stepfather's surname), was born on this day in Chicago [Note that through the years since her debut in film in the 1890's, she has been credited with both surnames]. She was famous not just for her appearance in early film, she was a sensation long before; which is, of course, how she came to be in motion pictures. She is historically important as a participant in a number firsts. She was the original "Gibson Girl", and was one of the original performers in Ziegfeld Follies in 1907; she was the first actor/performer featured in the very first Kinetoscope installed for viewing in London, England, and she has been credited as introducing eroticism to film--just to name but a few.  An excellent case can be made that she was the very first movie star.  In terms of how she came to be the subject of films, she was trained as a dancer in her youth and made her formal dance debut at the 1893 Columbian Exchange.  It is not a coincidence that she performed "butterfly dances" and similar "dress" or "skirt dances," and that she was from Chicago. The originator of the "skirt dance" was Loie Fuller, who started as a very talented improve or free dancer; she was already a famous burlesque dancer who both choreographed and lit her own dances--the most famous of which was the Serpentine Dance--and she was also from Chicago.  When Annabelle traveled to New York the following year, at the age of 16, she became one of the earliest actual performers for the Edison Manufacturing co. when she appeared in the Annabelle Sun Dance (1894) directed by William K. L. Dickson himself, and one of the films shot in the Black Maria, the world's very first film studio (note that the "poster" in the Internet Movie Database for this film depicts a different film, in fact the very next film she appeared in). In all, she made three "skirt dance" films for Edison--including the Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894) & Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895)--before moving on to American Mutoscope with another rendition of the Butterfly Dance in 1896. In another historical first, Annabelle Serpentine Dance represents one of the very first color motion pictures, hand tinted, and is most likely the very first distributed color film. In all she appeared 10 "dance" films with both companies combined. At American Mutoscope, she added her Tambourine Dance and a Flag Dance to the world of earliest cinema. Her later dance films in 1897 were all made back at the Edison facility.  She has just one other film to her name, a "trick film" made by the German Mutoscope & Biograph company, combining skirt dancing with footage shot at the German aquarium--edited in such a way as to make the dancer appear to be dancing underwater.  It was released as A Mermaid Dance in 1902. In the early 20th century, she spent time exclusively in stage revues of various sorts, and even did a little stage acting before retiring for good in 1912. She had married in 1910 and her and her husband moved back to Chicago. He died there in 1958, she followed on the 1st of December in 1961 at the age of 83.  In a "not much has changed" note: her and her husband, a Dr., donated in 1957 to a charity to benefit under privileged children in Chicago, when she earned-all on her own-a one time payment for writing an article about her witnessing the horrible fire at the Iroquois Theater in 1903, when the Federal Government learned of the donation, they kicked both of them off of their pensions....classy uh?? Interestingly, in the weeks following that blaze, which killed over 600 people, Annabelle herself was counted among the dead. About her actual death almost 6 decades later, there are conflicting reports as to whether she was buried at Chicago's famed Graceland Cemetery or cremated there and her ashes scattered. Three interesting documentaries have included footage and biographical materials on her, each in their own area of focus: from early color to early erotica. They are listed below:

Glorious Technicolor (1998)

Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003)

The Quiet Room: A Story of Cinema (2013 short) 

Gibson Girl

IMDb

Find A Grave entry

Space Flight In The Silent Movie Era

An Excursion To The Moon (1908)

Over at my Scare Me On Fridays blog we are celebrating the second day of the Countdown to Halloween with a  Science Fiction theme, so here is an early Sci-Fi from Spain.  This is yet another Segundo de Chomon remake of the an earlier Melies original in English A Trip To The Moon (1902).

The Talion Punishment (1906)

The Impossible Voyage (1904)

This embed if from the good folks over at Internet Archive.  It looks strangely out sized in the post, but it does play; it's probably best viewed in full screen.  This is another one Melies trick movies.  He really had a strange obsession with Jules Vern and H. G. Wells!

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 10

Finally episode 10 of the ground breaking French serial Les Vampires.  My edition is the two disc edition put out in 2005 (which sadly is out of print and expensive).  This edition contains a lengthy liner notes essay by Fabrice Zagury.  It is a lengthy read, but worth the time, starting with Louis Feuillade's beginnings through to the film's posterity.  I think he stresses some key points as the the film making of Feuillade's place as a true pioneer in early cinema over all, and I believe, in early horror films in particular.  

He says of Fueillede in the important year of 1913, when Gaumont started producing true feature length films; "In the  eyes of posterity and from this moment on he would remain the glorious pioneer of the serial film.  Les Vampires, which describes the achievements of a secret society of criminals and their muse, is regarded as Feuillade's masterpiece in this genre.  It was shot during the war in the empty and grey streets of Paris."

Passerby inspecting a Vampires poster

He later concluded:  "Feuillade, the father of the Vampire, enriched the collective imaginary of the French by exploiting the latent fascination and magical powers coming from the serial film."  Here is the final installment of his ground breaking Vampires.

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 9

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 8

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 7

This is Part Seven of Les Vampires--entitled Satanas.  For the Wikipedia entry on the series, click here

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 4

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 3

Just a bit about director Louis Feuillade

Born in 1873, during his lifetime, Feuillade would go on to direct a whopping 700 films!  He actually wrote 800 screenplays in his lifetime as well.  His film career started Le Maison Gaumont in 1905.  He starting directing films for them in 1906, starting with Un coup de vent under artistic production director Alice Guy (who was the first woman in world ever to direct a film).  He directed or produced 9 short films that year. In 1907, after Mll. Guy left the company,  he was promoted to artistic director in charge of production, her old job.  It was from this position that he film making career really took off.

Though all early filmmakers started out making shorts, even long after solid narrative scripts of stories entered the picture, there are a few that quickly progressed on to something more.  In the United States, D. W. Griffith was constantly trying to find was to lengthen his films in one sitting.  He had experimented with movies in parts, but it was a format that didn't suit him.  So his work pioneering lenght of film is well documented and well regarded, he is the the father of the feature.  Louis Feuillade also deserves credit for the advancement of the length of a filmed story; but his approach was in pioneering and promoting serials.  By 1910 his serials were well established, by 1913 Gaumont began to produce feature length films and along came his Fantomas series.  It remains his most successful series after Les Vampires to this day.  

Still from Fantomas

Fueillade was above all a director who loved to tell a story, and resisted later efforts, especially in France, and especially after World War I, in intellectualized film to a point that most of the narrative was pushed back out.  Famed director in his own right, René Clair, who started out as Fueillade's assistant said of his days working on serials with him "very often we started a film in 12 episodes without knowing how we would finish it."  Feuillade himself later commented 1920, "A film is not a sermon or a conference, even less a rebus, but a means to entertain the eyes and spirit."  He was known to be quite a humble man, the son of wine makers, he appreciate the wider audience, and didn't at all cotton to the new notions that intellectualizing cinema to draw a more cultivated audience was anything laudable.  He continued his statement, "The quality of the entertainment is measured by the interest of the crowd form whom it was created."  Well merely 5 years before his Les Vampires did just that.  Here's part 3.

Note:  quotes taken from liner notes,  in essay written by Fabrice Zagury.

Les Vampires (1915-1916) Part 2

Today's Film: An Excursion To The Moon (1908)

While I am still having Internet troubles here, with serious run around's with the cable company over services call, it has at least stabilized enough to get some extra stuff finished.  And I found my source material on the restoration of this little film.

This is a famous early remake, in fact, it is almost a frame for from remake of the famous Meliese "trick" film of 1902 (in English) A Trip To The Moon.  Though this was produced by the famous French film company Pathe Freres, it was actually directed by one of Spain's earliest film directors, Segundo de Chomon.  Though the remake is almost frame for frame, this version is richly hand stenciled--the stencil in the preserved copy of the film is the original stencilling done by Pathe.

This film is part of the Lobster Film  collection.  And is part of a collection of important early films put out on DVD by Flicker Alley LLC entitled Saved from the Flames:  54 Rare and Restored Films 1896-1944.  Music by Frederick Hodges.