King John

Movie
Original title	King John
Country of production	Great Britain
Publishing year	1899
length	fragment obtained: 3 minutes
Rod
Director	Walter Pfeffer Dando , William KL Dickson
camera	William KL Dickson
occupation
Herbert Beerbohm Tree : King Johann Louis Calvert : Cardinal Pandulph SA Cookson : Earl of Salisbury James Fisher: Earl of Pembroke Gerald Lawrence : Louis the Dauphin Norman McKinnel : Lymoges Franklyn McLeay: Hubert de Burgh William Mollison: Philip II Julia Neilson : Constance FM Paget: Robert Bigot Arthur Sefton: Prince Arthur Dora Senior: Prince Henry Lewis Waller : Phillip

King John is a British silent film from 1899. It is considered to be the first film with a Shakespeare theme.

Plot (of the fragment)

King John sits on his throne and awaits his death at Swinstead Abbey.

background

The film consisted of several short scenes from Herbert Beerbohm Tree's stage production by King Johann . It served as a commercial for theater production in London. It was presented in foreign distribution as a recording of a celebrated English stage production.

King John is considered to be the oldest Shakespeare film adaptation in film history. It originated as a production of the British Mutoscope and Biograph , a British-funded branch of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company .

The film originally consisted of four scenes, only a fragment of which has survived and is kept in the Nederlands Filmmuseum .

Web links

• King John in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Judith Buchanan Shakespeare films . In Richard Abel: Encyclopedia of Early Cinema , New York 2010, p. 588
2. ↑ Comparison with the Film History Milestones website