Tearing Down the Spanish Flag
R: J. Stuart Blackton. K: Albert E. Smith. P: Vitagraph Company of America. USA 1898
Filming Locations: Brooklyn, New York City

“Almost as soon as war was declared, J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith of the Vitagraph Co. produced what is often called the world’s first war movie. The film was called Tearing Down the Spanish Flag, and it caused a sensation. The film was simply a close-up of Blackton’s hands pulling down a Spanish flag and replacing it with the American standard. ‘It was taken in a 10 x 12 studio room, the background a building next door’, Blackton explained in a lecture at the University of Southern California in 1929. ‘We had a flag pole and two 18-inch flags. Smith operated the machine and I, with this very hand, grabbed the Spanish flag and tore it down from the pole and pulled the Stars and Stripes to the top of the flag pole. That was our very first dramatic picture and it is surprising how much dramatic effect it created… the people went wild.'”
movie movie

Click on the picture to view this film on YouTube

Filipinos Retreat from Trenches
R: James White. P: Thomas A.Edison Inc. USA 1899

From Edison films catalog:
“An incident of the Battle of the Trenches at Candabar [sic]. The enemy threw up a high earth embankment during the night, and are defending it with great stubbornness. The pits are crowded with Filipinos, who fire volley after volley. The artillery of the Americans plays havoc with their ranks and they fall back, leaving many dead. Their retreat is hotly covered by a company of U.S. Infantry, with mounted officer. They tumble over the embankment into the trench, fire a volley and advance. The officer carefully examines the earthworks, his horse picking his way cautiously over the bodies of the fallen foe.
Reenacted by the New Jersey National Guard in the Orange Mountains near West Orange, New Jersey.”
Library of Congress

Capture of Trenches at Candaba
R: James White. P: Thomas A.Edison Inc. USA 1899

From Edison films catalog:
“The Filipinos execute a flank movement and re-occupy the trenches, cutting off the advance guard of Americans. The rebel flag waves over the ditch and they defend their position bravely. A fierce charge by our soldiers makes them give way and they scatter in all directions. The officer in command pays dearly for his desperate sortie. Just as his horse clears the embankment the officer throws up his hands and falls backward with a crash; while the riderless horse dashes off toward the American lines. Full of exciting action and excellent detail. 75 feet”–Edison films catalog, no. 105.
Reenacted by the New Jersey National Guard. Photographed May, 1899 in the Orange Mountains near West Orange, New Jersey.”
Library of Congress

Love and War
R: James White / P: Thomas Alva Edison. USA 1899

“An illustrated song telling the story of a hero who leaves for war as a private, is promoted to the rank of captain for bravery in service, meets the girl of his choice, who is a Red Cross nurse on the field, and finally returns home triumphantly as an officer to the father and mother to whom he bade good-by as a private. The film presents this beautiful song picture in six scenes, each of which has a separate song, making the entire series a complete and effective novelty.”
Library of Congress

“The catalog description for the 200-foot, six-scene Love and War also reveals a narrative coherence not apparent from simply watching the film. (…) Here again, the title and story line were familiar ones. Only four scenes were copyrighted under this title, but two other films, including the concurrently made Fun in Camp , were apparently added to previous Love and War to fill out its advertised length. For both ‘song films’ the careful fit between words and picture required the production company to exercise a high degree of creative control. However, both films lacked the spatial and even temporal complexity of the multishot actualities.”
Charles Musser: Before the Nickelodeon. Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley-Los Angeles- Oxford 1991, p. 150 f.

More about the Spanish-American War and the media:
The Library of Congress: A Guide to the American-Spanish War

>>> The Spririt of the Flag by Allan Dwan, 1913

Algie the Miner
R: Edward Warren. D: Billy Quirk, Mary Foy. Supervision: Alice Guy. P: Solax Film Co. USA 1912

“A gay-themed Western seems as though it could only be a 21st-century creation. But 93 years prior to Brokeback Mountain (2005), a gay cowboy named Algernon Allmore was already pioneering that cultural frontier in Alice Guy-Blache‘s comedy short Algie, the Miner (1912). Algernon (Billy Quirk) is an effete city boy who is required to go West and develop some virility before he can have the hand of his girlfriend in marriage. Technically, he is not a homosexual. This was 1912 and, even in the most forward-thinking film, some sexual orientations dared not speak their names. Instead, Algie’s character is defined as gay through certain visual indicators of behavior and dress: his tendency to give cowboys kisses on the lips rather than slaps on the back, his bright and flamboyant Western wear, and a penchant for lace hankies and lip rouge.

In one of the film’s more inventive uses of visual metaphor, Algie’s masculinity is represented by the size of his firearm. When he first arrives out West, he packs a dainty silver pistol, but as he becomes acclimated to the rugged terrain, he begins packing a more butch six-shooter. While Algie acquires the manliness required by his future father-in-law, a secondary character emerges as an unexpectedly compelling figure: Algie’s bunkmate Big Jim. When Algie tearfully nurses Jim through a terrible case of the d.t.’s, we detect some depth in their camaraderie. After Algie valiantly saves Jim from armed bandits, the burly prospector forms a curious attachment to the transplanted Easterner. And when Algie announces his departure from the West, to return to his bride, Big Jim assumes a posture of childlike sadness. It appears that Jim, not Algie, is the more romantically inclined. That a film could develop a relationship so complex, poignant and utterly unconventional in a scant ten minutes is a testament to the talents of director Alice Guy-Blache.”
Bret Wood (TCM)
UC Berkeley

>>> A Florida Enchantment by Sidney Drew on this website

>>> Vingarne – A ‘Gay-Themed Film’ by Mauritz Stiller