1902 in film

The year 1902 in film involved some significant events.

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Events

• March 10 – A Circuit Court decision in the United States ends Thomas Edison's monopoly on 35 mm movie film technology.[1]
• April 2 – Thomas Lincoln Tally opens the Electric Theater, the first permanent movie theater, in Los Angeles.[2] Tally co-founds the First National Exhibitors Circuit in 1917.[3][4]
• August 9 – Georges Méliès' film The Coronation of Edward VII (a staged simulation with inserted actuality footage) is first shown in London on the evening of the Coronation itself.
• September 1 – Actor/producer Méliès premières the first science fiction film, the silent A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans La Lune), at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris, France; it proves an immediate success.[5] One scene features the animated human face of the moon being struck in the eye by a rocket.
• William Wardell invents an 11 mm amateur film format, Vitak.

Notable films released in 1902

Mitchell and Kenyon

Screenshot from the film Living Wigan.

• Bradford Coronation Procession
• Burnley v. Manchester United, this film may be the first moving picture images of Manchester United ever recorded.
• Comic Pictures In High Street, West Bromwich
• Dewsbury v. Manningham
• Electric Tram Rides from Forster Square, Bradford
• Employees Leaving Storey's Moor Lane Mill, Lancaster
• The Great Local Derby: Accrington v. Church, Cricket Match
• Leeds Athletic And Cycling Club Carnival
• Lieutenant Clive Wilson And The Tranby Croft Party, Hull
• Living Wigan
• Sheffield United v. Bury
• Street Scenes In Halifax
• Tram Ride Into Halifax
• Wexford Bull Ring
• Workers Leaving The Jute Works, Barrow

Edwin S. Porter

• Fun In A Bakery Shop
• Jack and the Beanstalk

Ferdinand Zecca

• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, directed by Ferdinand Zecca, hand-tinted (in 1905) by Segundo de Chomón
• Quo Vadis?, directed by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca

Georges Méliès

Man in the moon scene.

• The Coronation of Edward VII.
• The Treasures of Satan
• A Trip to the Moon
• Robinson Crusoe
• Le Voyage de Gulliver à Lilliput et chez les géants

Others

• The Enchanted Cup, directed by Walter A. Booth (British) [6]
• The Little Match Seller, directed by James Williamson
• Maria Marten, or The Murder at the Red Barn, (British) directed by Dicky Martin[7]
• The Prince of Darkness, produced by America Mutoscope
• Sleeping Beauty (aka La Belle au Bois Dormant)[8]
• Snow White, produced by Siegmund Lubin
• The Troublesome Fly, produced by Biograph [9]
• Working Rotary Snow Plows, produced by Edison Studios

Births

Thelma Ritter.

Larry Fine.

• January 2 – Sybil Seely, American silent film actress (d. 1984)
• January 11 – Atang de la Rama, Filipina silent film actress and singer (d. 1991)
• January 31 – Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (d. 1968)
• February 3 – Dolly Rudeman, Dutch film poster designer (d. 1980)
• February 14 – Thelma Ritter, American actress (d. 1965)
• March 8 – Louise Beavers, African-American film and television actress (d. 1962)
• March 23 – Philip Ober, American actor (d. 1982)
• March 27 – Kenneth Macpherson, Scottish-born avant-garde film-maker (d. 1971)
• March 28 – Flora Robson, English actress (d. 1984)
• April 25 – Mary Miles Minter, American actress (d. 1984)
• May 2 – Brian Aherne, English actor (d. 1986)
• May 3 – Walter Slezak, Austrian-born character actor and singer (d. 1983)
• May 4 – Mona Mårtenson, Swedish film actress (d. 1956)
• May 6 – Max Ophüls, German-born film director (d. 1957)
• May 10 – David O. Selznick, American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive (d. 1965)
• May 21 – Anatole Litvak, Russian-born American filmmaker (d. 1974)
• May 28 – Luis César Amadori, Italian–Argentine film director and screenwriter (d. 1977)
• May 30 – Stepin Fetchit, American comedian and film actor (d. 1985)
• June 5 – Walter Plunkett, American costume designer (d. 1982 )
• June 22 – Marguerite De La Motte, American film actress (d. 1950)
• July 1 – William Wyler, German-born American film director, producer and screenwriter (d. 1981)
• July 18
  • Dimitar Panov, Bulgarian film and theater actor and director (d. 1985)
  • Chill Wills, American actor and a singer (d. 1978)
• August 10
  • Norma Shearer, Canadian-American actress (d. 1983)
  • Curt Siodmak, Polish-born American novelist and screenwriter (d. 2000)
• August 11 – Lloyd Nolan, American film and television actor (d. 1985)
• August 22 – Leni Riefenstahl, German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, actress, dancer and propagandist for the Nazis (d. 2003)
• September 5 – Darryl F. Zanuck, American film producer and studio executive (d. 1979)
• September 22 – John Houseman, Romanian-born British-American actor and producer (d. 1988)
• October 5 – Larry Fine, American actor, comedian, member of The Three Stooges (d. 1975)
• October 18 – Miriam Hopkins, American film and TV actress (d. 1972)
• October 28 – Elsa Lanchester, British-born American actress (d. 1986)
• November 4 – John P. Fulton, American special effects supervisor (d. 1966)
• December 9 – Margaret Hamilton, American film character actress (d. 1985)
• December 19
  • Barton MacLane, American actor, playwright and screenwriter (d. 1969)
  • Ralph Richardson, English actor (d. 1983)

Deaths

• February 15 – Wilhelmina J. R. Albregt-Engelman, Dutch actress (born 1834)

References

1. "Continued Legal Battles". Thomas A. Edison Papers. Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. 2016-10-28. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
2. Cinema treasures
3. Films of the Golden Age. Archived 2004-12-16 at the Wayback Machine
4. First National filmography.
5. Hammond, Paul (1974), Marvellous Méliès, London: Gordon Fraser, p. 141, ISBN 0-900406-38-0
6. Kinnard,Roy (1995). "Horror in Silent Films". McFarland and Company Inc. ISBN 0-7864-0036-6. Page 14.
7. Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.
8. Kinnard,Roy (1995). "Horror in Silent Films". McFarland and Company Inc. ISBN 0-7864-0036-6. Page 14.
9. Kinnard,Roy (1995). "Horror in Silent Films". McFarland and Company Inc. ISBN 0-7864-0036-6. Page 16.