1870s in film

none 1870 film television The decade of the 1870s in film involved some significant events. Events 1874 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen used his Janssen revolver to photograph the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun, a sequence of photographs that could be considered as the oldest film; that he called "Passage de Vénus" 1877 – French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud improved on the Zoetrope idea by placing mirrors at the center of the drum. He called his invention the Praxinoscope. Reynaud developed other versions of the Praxinoscope, too, including a Praxinoscope Theatre (where the device was enclosed in a viewing box) and the Projecting Praxinoscope. Eventually he created the "Théâtre Optique", a large machine based on the Praxinoscope, able to project longer animated strips. In the United States, the McLoughlin Bros. from New York released in 1879 a simplified (and unauthorized) copy of Reynaud's invention under the name "Whirligig of Life". 1877–1878 – Thomas Edison's announcement of his phonograph invention inspired Scientific American to suggest combinations with stereoscopic photographs and projection. Wordsworth Donisthorpe replied that his Kinesigraph (patented in 1876) would soon produce moving life-size photographs with the motion of lips and gestures corresponding to the words from the phonograph. 1878 – Eadweard Muybridge records his famous chronophotographic series of pictures of the phases of The Horse in Motion, the result of an assignment by railroad tycoon Leland Stanford who wanted to see proof of the real positions of the horse's gait. The pictures had a huge impact, because the recorded positions were very different (and often less gracious) than most people imagined; many drawings and paintings turned out to be incorrect. Births Year Month Date Name Country Profession Died 1870 March 13 Henri Étiévant France Actor, Director 1953 May 2 Lewis J. Selznick US Producer 1933 1871 March 23 Heinrich Schroth Germany Actor 1945 April 16 Henry Stephenson US Actor 1956 April 21 Jaro Fürth Austria Actor 1945 May 30 Olga Engl Austria Actress 1946 July 7 Richard Carle US Actor, Playwright 1941 1872 January 25 Robert McWade US Actor 1938 February 12 Oscar Stribolt Denmark Actor 1927 April 26 William Desmond Taylor Ireland Actor, Director 1922 December 22 Georg Blomstedt Sweden Actor 1933 1873 January 7 Adolph Zukor US Founder of Paramount Pictures 1976 March 7 Madame Sul-Te-Wan US Actress 1959 June 10 Vera Lewis US Actress 1956 June 13 Karin Swanström Sweden Actress, Director 1942 July 1 Alice Guy-Blaché France Director, Producer, Screenwriter 1968 November 24 John St. Polis US Actor 1946 1874 March 19 Arthur Hoyt US Actor 1953 April 28 Sidney Toler US Actor, Writer 1947 June 2 E. Alyn Warren US Actor 1940 November 13 Henry Kolker US Actor, Director 1947 November 22 Elizabeth Patterson US Actor 1966 November 30 Lloyd Ingraham US Actor, Director 1956 1875 January 15 Claude King UK Actor 1941 January 22 D. W. Griffith US Filmmaker 1948 February 26 Emma Dunn UK Actress 1966 March 25 Spencer Charters US Actor 1943 April 4 Samuel S. Hinds US Actor, Lawyer 1948 June 6 J. Farrell MacDonald US Actor, Director 1952 June 11 Gilbert Emery US Actor 1945 September 12 Matsunosuke Onoe Japan Actor 1926 November 10 Maude Eburne Canada Actress 1960 December 8 Frederik Buch Denmark Actor 1925 1876 February 26 Amy Veness UK Actress 1960 March 18 Frank Darien US Actor 1955 June 20 Romuald Joubé France Actor 1949 1877 June 19 Charles Coburn US Actor 1961 November 8 Robert Homans US Actor 1947 1878 January 16 Harry Carey US Actor 1947 April 12 Lionel Barrymore US Actor 1954 May 25 Bill Robinson US Actor, Dancer 1949 June 26 Ernest Torrence Scotland Actor 1933 July 14 Donald Meek Scotland Actor 1946 1879 January 1 William Fox Hungary Founder of Fox Film Corporation 1952 January 1 Paul Porcasi Italy Actor 1946 February 12 Urban Gad Denmark Director 1947 June 9 Dudley Digges US Actor 1947 August 15 Ethel Barrymore US Actress 1959 October 15 Jane Darwell US Actress 1967 October 22 Karl Hoblitzelle US Movie theater owner 1967 November 4 Will Rogers US Actor, Comedian 1935 November 15 Lewis Stone US Actor 1953 December 27 Sydney Greenstreet UK Actor 1954 December 27 Robert Greig Australia Actor 1958 See also Film History of film Lists of films 1870s in music External links List of 1870s films at IMDb List of 1870s deaths at IMDb List of 1870s births at IMDb Category:Films by decade Category:Film by decade