Fire Rescue Scene
R William K.L. Dickson und William Heise. P: Thomas Edison Manufacturing Co. 1894

The first film of a series of popular firemen movies

“Perhaps the single most ambitious subject of this period was Fire Rescue, made for Raff & Gammon. Filmed inside the Black Maria, the production involved elaborate smoke effects and the assistance of a local fire department. The film can be considered an innovative extension of workplace films like Blacksmith Scene. Certainly, fire-men embodied nineteenth-century manly virtues (courage, strength, etc.), and local fire departments served as centers for many male leisure activities. The homosocial worlds of fire fighting and film production easily converged; they would do so again with much frequency in the years ahead.”
Charles Musser: Before the Nickelodeon. Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford 1991, p. 51

Edison’s studio Black Maria

TRAUM UND EXZESS, S. 131