The Invisible Fluid | |
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![]() Film frame of the "Messenger" (left) just before he makes the "Fruit vendor" disappear | |
Directed by | Wallace McCutcheon Sr. [1] [lower-alpha 1] |
Produced by | American Mutoscope and Biograph Company [2] [lower-alpha 2] New York City |
Starring | Edward Dillon |
Cinematography | G. W. Bitzer |
Distributed by | American Mutoscope and Biograph Company |
Release date |
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Running time | 9.5 minutes, 662 feet [3] [lower-alpha 3] |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent |
The Invisible Fluid is a 1908 American silent science fiction comedy film produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company of New York, directed by Wallace McCutcheon Sr., and starring Edward Dillon. [4] [lower-alpha 4] The short's plot relies extensively on the filming and editing technique of substitution splicing, also known as "stop trick", a special effect that creates the illusion of various characters or objects suddenly vanishing on screen.
Full copies of this trick film, now in the public domain, survive in various formats. Some digital copies are available for viewing on streaming services such as YouTube and at the Internet Archive. [5] [6] Film-stock copies are preserved among the holdings of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and in the collection of the British Film Institute in London. [4] [7]
The film's storyline centers on a "doltish" young messenger or "errand boy" who manages to obtain a small spray bottle filled with a fluid that when misted directly onto a person or an object causes that individual or item to vanish suddenly and entirely for at least 10 minutes. [7] Initially, the young man simply delights in making people disappear, using the fluid to create panic and confusion by spraying and "erasing" a bridegroom at a wedding, various workers, and pedestrians. Later, at a restaurant, the messenger realizes he can use the concoction for personal financial gain by stealing a cash register. After being chased by an angry mob of the people who had vanished but now have reappeared, he is captured by the police, but the invisible fluid provides him a means to escape. [7]
Another summary of the plot, an even more detailed one, is provided in the June 20, 1909 issue of the New York trade journal The Moving Picture World :
THE INVISIBLE FLUID (Biograph)—Had the poor melancholy Dane, Hamlet, lived in this, the twentieth century, he would never have given voice to the remark, "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" No indeed! He would have procured some of the mysterious fluid compounded by an erudite scientist by which things animate and inanimate were rendered non est for ten minutes at least, by simply spraying them with it. In an atomizer, [the scientist] sends a quantity, accompanied by a letter, to his brother, in the hope of his putting it on the market. The brother regards it as a joke, and, while toying with the atomizer, accidentally sprays himself. Presto! he is gone, to the amazement of the messenger boy who has carried the package thither. The boy reads the letter, and at once sees the amount of fun he can get out of it, so he nips it. Strolling along the avenue is a young girl, leading a dog by a chain. Swish! and a dangling chain is all that is left with the girl. Next, a Dago with a fruit stand; first, the fruit stand is made to disappear. then the Dago himself. Two expressmen are lifting a heavy trunk from their wagon when the boy appears. Same result—trunk vamooses, as do the expressmen, with another squirt of the fluid. A wedding party is just leaving church when this young imp comes along. The groom vanishes, and the bride is thrown into hysterics.
Into the park he meanders, and many and ludicrous are the tricks he plays. Finally, he enters a restaurant, and, after almost throwing the place into a panic, goes to pay his check, but, instead, he, with one spray, obliterates the young lady cashier and then steals the cash register. He is now chased by a mob of his victims, who have by this time overcome the influence of the fluid and become reincarnate. Halting on the road, he turns on his pursuers and affects their disappearance one after another as they approach him. A copper steals up from behind, and, taken unawares [ sic ], he is carried off to the station house. With a policeman on each side of him, he appears before the judge. Picking up the atomizer, he gives it a squeeze and vanishes instantly, leaving the judge and officers dumbfounded. Length, 662 feet. [3]
According to company records cited in the 1985 reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company, this science-fiction comedy was filmed on May 16, 1908, with principal photography—the outdoor scenes—being shot along streets and on parkland in Grantwood, New Jersey. [1] [8] That community is a short distance, just across the Hudson River, from the Manhattan borough of New York City, which in 1908 was home to the American Mutoscope and Biography Company's main studio. Situated inside a converted brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street, that studio was Biograph's first indoor studio and where between 1906 and 1913 interior scenes for productions were filmed, including those for The Invisible Fluid. [1] [9]
Company records also credit the filming of this short to Wilhelm ("Billy") Bitzer, who had begun working as a staff cinematographer for Biograph in 1896 and by 1908 was widely regarded "as the greatest camera man in the business". [10] [11] It is noteworthy that the actor portraying the "Mailman" in the opening scene of The Invisible Fluid is D. W. Griffith, who is wearing a postal uniform and carries a letter bag on his shoulder. [1] Just weeks after the filming of this project, Griffith would broaden his duties at Biograph and make his debut as a film director, overseeing the studio's production of the drama short The Adventures of Dollie . [12] Although another company cinematographer, Arthur Marvin, shot that 1908 release, Griffith would soon begin collaborating with Bitzer, who served not only as his chief cameraman on nearly all of Griffith's future projects but also served as Griffith's early mentor, instructing "the novice director" about many aspects of film lighting, scene composition, and editing. [13] [14]
The story and cinematography of The Invisible Fluid rely extensively on the filming and editing technique of substitution splicing to create the illusion of characters in various scenes suddenly disappearing. Also known as the special effect of "stop trick", the technique is often confused today with the term "stop motion" as it applies to the creation of modern animated features. The splicing technique used in this comedy was already a well-established effect by 1908, having been popularized over a decade earlier by French illusionist, actor, and pioneer cinematographer Georges Méliès. [15] Méliès used this splicing method in an array of his early projects, including in his 75-second 1896 film Escamotage d'une dame chez Robert-Houdin (known too by the abbreviated English title The Vanishing Lady ). [16] [17] Like many other early motion picture studios in Europe and in the United States, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company quickly adopted stop-trick effects in its productions. The studio's directors, camera operators, and film editors or "cutters" had begun using the process as early as 1900, portraying on screen the disappearance of a burglar in Biograph's comedy short Sherlock Holmes Baffled . [18]
Remarks about this film published in 1908 newspapers and trade journals are generally quite brief and with few exceptions are connected to advertisements for the Biograph release and to its promotion at various theaters throughout the United States. More than 17 months after the comedy's release, it was still being screened in large and small towns. One of those locations is Pendleton in northeastern Oregon, a community that in 1909 had a population of slightly over 4,400 residents. [19] There on November 13, 1909, the Orpheum Theatre promoted in the local newspaper a diverse entertainment program that was to present that evening The Invisible Fluid as the final film in a lineup of four other shorts, two of which were considerably older than this Biograph release: a crime drama by Edison Studios, The Train Wrecker[s] (1905); the French trick film The Flower Fairy (1905) by Pathé Frères; a documentary short, Steel Industry (1908), produced in England by the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation; and the Western The Tale of Texas (1909) released by the Centaur Film Company. [20]
Digital copies reproduced from various sources are available today for viewing online. One copy, for example, is cited as "Invisible Fluid (1908) AM&B" and is available on the streaming service YouTube. [5] Another copy, under the Brazilian Portuguese title O fluido invisibilizador, can be viewed at the free site Internet Archive. [6]
Film-stock copies of The Invisible Fluid survive in the Library of Congress (LOC), which also holds a 255-foot paper roll of contact prints produced directly, frame-by-frame, from Biograph's original nitrate negative footage. [7] [lower-alpha 5] Submitted by the studio to the United States government in June 1908, shortly before the film's release, the roll is part of the original documentation required by federal authorities for motion picture companies in their applications to obtain copyright protection for their productions. [21] [lower-alpha 6] While the library's paper roll of the film is certainly not projectable, a negative copy of the roll's paper images was made and transferred onto modern polyester-based safety film stock. From that negative footage a positive print could then be processed for screening. All of these copies were made as part of a preservation project carried out during the 1950s and early 1960s by Kemp R. Niver and other LOC staff, who restored more than 3,000 early paper rolls of film images from the library's collection in order to create safety-stock copies. [21] Among other print and digital copies preserved today is a full 35mm positive copy, one also transferred to safety stock, that is held by the British Film Institute. [4] [5]
Gottfried Wilhelm Bitzer was an American cinematographer, notable for his close association and pioneering work with D. W. Griffith.
Biograph Studios was an early film studio and laboratory complex, built in 1912 by the Biograph Company at 807 East 175th Street, in The Bronx, New York City, New York.
The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over 3000 short films and 12 feature films. During the height of silent film as a medium, Biograph was the most prominent U.S. film studio and one of the most respected and influential studios worldwide, only rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri and France's Pathé. The company was home to pioneering director D. W. Griffith and such actors as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore.
Sherlock Holmes Baffled is an American silent trick film created in 1900 with cinematography by Arthur Marvin. It is the earliest known film to feature Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character Sherlock Holmes, albeit in a form unlike that of later screen incarnations. In the film, a thief who can appear and disappear at will steals a sack of items from Sherlock Holmes. At each point, Holmes's attempts to thwart the intruder end in failure.
Ramona is a 1910 American short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith, based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. Through a love story, the early silent short explores racial injustice to Native Americans and stars Mary Pickford and Henry B. Walthall. A copy of the print survives in the Library of Congress film archive. The film was remade in 1928 with Dolores del Río and 1936 with Loretta Young.
The Call of the Wild is a 1908 American short silent Western film directed by D. W. Griffith and produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. The short, a "one-reeler", stars Charles Inslee, Harry Solter and Florence Lawrence. Its interior scenes were shot at Biograph's studio facilities in New York City, and its exteriors were filmed on location in Coytesville, today one of the oldest communities in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Wallace McCutcheon Sr. was a pioneer cinematographer and director in the early American motion picture industry, working with the American Mutoscope & Biograph, Edison and American Star Film companies. McCutcheon's wealth of credits are often mixed up with the small handful of films directed by his son, Wallace McCutcheon Jr. (1884–1928).
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A Wreath in Time is a 1909 American silent comedy film written and directed by D. W. Griffith, produced by the Biograph Company of New York City, and co-starring Mack Sennett and Florence Lawrence. At its release in February 1909, the short was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single reel that accommodated more than one film. A Wreath in Time shared its reel with another Biograph short also directed by Griffith, the drama Edgar Allen Poe [sic]. Original paper rolls of contact prints of both motion pictures, as well as safety-stock copies of the two films, are preserved in the Library of Congress.
The Widow and the Only Man is a 1904 American short silent comedy film produced by the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company and directed by Wallace McCutcheon, Sr.
A Sound Sleeper is a 1909 American comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith and produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. The short was filmed in one day in the Coytesville borough of Fort Lee, New Jersey, which at the time was a popular filming location for many early motion-picture studios in the northeastern United States. Due to the brief running time of this comedy, it was originally distributed in April 1909 on a split reel with another Biograph release, a longer dramatic film titled The Winning Coat.
Trying to Get Arrested is a 1909 American comedy short film directed by D. W. Griffith, produced by the Biograph Company of New York City, and starring John R. Cumpson. Filmed in two days in early 1909 at Palisades Park, New Jersey, it was released in April that year and distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single film reel that included more than one motion picture. The other picture that accompanied this comedy was the Biograph "dramedy" The Road to the Heart.
The Road to the Heart is a 1909 American short film, a dramedy directed by D. W. Griffith and produced by the Biograph Company of New York City. Starring David Miles, Anita Hendrie and Herbert Yost, it was filmed over two days in March 1909 at Biograph's studio in Manhattan and released that April in theaters as a film reel split with the Biograph comedy Trying to Get Arrested.
A Rude Hostess is a 1909 American silent film comedy written and directed by D. W. Griffith, produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, and co-starring Marion Leonard and Arthur V. Johnson. At its release in April 1909, the short was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single reel that accommodated more than one film. A Rude Hostess shared its reel with another Biograph comedy short directed by Griffith, Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade. Original contact-print paper rolls of both motion pictures, as well as projectable safety-stock copies of the films, are preserved in the Library of Congress.
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade is a 1909 American silent film comedy written and directed by D. W. Griffith, produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, and co-starring John R. Cumpson and Florence Lawrence. At its release in April 1909, the short was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single reel that accommodated more than one film. This short shared its reel with another Biograph comedy directed by Griffith, A Rude Hostess.
The Medicine Bottle is a 1909 American silent thriller film written and directed by D. W. Griffith, produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, and starring Florence Lawrence, Adele DeGarde, and Marion Leonard. At its release in March 1909, the short was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single projection reel that accommodated more than one film. This drama shared its reel with another Biograph short directed by Griffith, the comedy Jones and His New Neighbors.
Jones and His New Neighbors is a 1909 American silent comedy film written by Frank E. Woods and directed by D. W. Griffith. Produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, the short stars John R. Cumpson, Florence Lawrence, and Anita Hendrie. It is one film in a series of 1908 and 1909 Biograph pictures in which Cumpson and Lawrence performed together as the married couple Mr. and Mrs. Jones. When this comedy was released in March 1909, it was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single projection reel that accommodated more than one motion picture. It shared its reel with another Biograph short directed by Griffith, the dramatic "thriller" The Medicine Bottle.
Jones and the Lady Book Agent is a 1909 American silent comedy film written by Frank E. Woods and directed by D. W. Griffith. Produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, the short stars John R. Cumpson, Florence Lawrence, and Flora Finch as the "lady book agent". It is one film in a series of 1908 and 1909 Biograph pictures in which Cumpson and Lawrence performed together as the married couple Mr. and Mrs. Jones. When this comedy was released in May 1909, it was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single projection reel that accommodated more than one motion picture. It shared its reel with another Biograph comedy short directed by Griffith, The French Duel. The film was released on May 10, 1909 by Biograph Company and was met by positive viewers. The film is presumed lost.
Chocolate Dynamite is a lost 1914 American silent comedy film produced by the Biograph Company and according to some modern references, directed by either Lionel Barrymore or Edward Dillon. Little is known about many aspects of this short, which had an approximate running time between six and seven minutes. No Biograph studio records have been found that conclusively identify its director or mention by name a single actor in the production. Records do document that the motion picture was based on "Captured by Dynamite", a short story written by Helen Combes. They also document that the comedy was filmed in New York City and was actually completed in late August 1913, a full six months before the company officially released it to theaters. During the picture's initial distribution in the United States, it was shipped on a "split reel", a term used in the silent era to describe a reel that held more than one motion picture. The film reel for Chocolate Dynamite also included Because of a Hat, another Biograph comedy short.