RockOfVictory | Star Theatre (1901) HD @RockOfVictory | Uploaded December 2017 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
Commonly known as "Demolishing and Building Up the Star Theatre" or "Star Theater," this is a time-lapse special effects film released in April 1901 showing the demolition of the Star Theatre (formerly the Wallack Building) at the corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street in New York City. According to publicity from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, “a specially devised electric apparatus” took single exposures every four minutes, within brief normal-speed views at the film’s start and close. The full title seems inexplicable—we see only demolition—until one reads Biograph’s recommendation to exhibitors that the film also be run backward: “When this view is shown in the reverse, the effect is very extraordinary.” —Scott Simmon filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/t1-demolishing-and-building-up-the-star-theatre-1901
Video from the Library of Congress loc.gov/item/00694388
For more videos like this, see my 10 Years 10 Films series, which highlights film milestones since 1888. zepfanman.com/10y10f
Commonly known as "Demolishing and Building Up the Star Theatre" or "Star Theater," this is a time-lapse special effects film released in April 1901 showing the demolition of the Star Theatre (formerly the Wallack Building) at the corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street in New York City. According to publicity from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, “a specially devised electric apparatus” took single exposures every four minutes, within brief normal-speed views at the film’s start and close. The full title seems inexplicable—we see only demolition—until one reads Biograph’s recommendation to exhibitors that the film also be run backward: “When this view is shown in the reverse, the effect is very extraordinary.” —Scott Simmon filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/t1-demolishing-and-building-up-the-star-theatre-1901
Video from the Library of Congress loc.gov/item/00694388
For more videos like this, see my 10 Years 10 Films series, which highlights film milestones since 1888. zepfanman.com/10y10f
