''Corbett and Courtney Before the Kinetograph'' (also known as ''Edison Kinetoscopic Record of Boxers'' and ''The Corbett-Courtney Fight'') is an 1894 American

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

produced by William K.L. Dickson and starring

James J. Corbett James John "Jim" Corbett (September 1, 1866 – February 18, 1933) was an American professional boxer and a World Heavyweight Champion, best known as the only man who ever defeated the great John L. Sullivan (hence the " man who beat the man ...

. It was only the second boxing match to be filmed following '' The Leonard-Cushing Fight'' which had been filmed by Dickson on June 14, 1894. The films are listed as "1st Round," "2nd Round," "3rd Round," "4th Round," "5th Round," and "6th Round". Only one partial round of the original six rounds remains intact.

Plot

(1866–1933) and

Peter Courtney Peter Michael Coleman Courtney (born June 18, 1943) is an American politician, lawyer, and professor who is currently a Democratic member of the Oregon State Senate, representing the 11th District (in Marion County and including parts of Salem ...

(1867–1896) both take part in a specially arranged

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

match under special conditions that allow for it to be filmed and displayed on a

Kinetograph The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

. The match consists of six one-minute rounds. James J. Corbett was a boxing hero of the time while Courtney was the underdog.

Production

The film was produced by the

Edison Manufacturing Company The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison and incorporated in New York City in May 188 ...

, which had begun making films in 1890 under the direction of one of the earliest pioneers to film William K.L. Dickson. It was filmed entirely within the

Black Maria Black Maria may refer to: Art and literature * Black Mariah (comics), a character in the Luke Cage comics series * Black Maria, a character in the manga series ''One Piece'' * ''Black Maria'' (novel), a 1991 novel by Diana Wynne Jones *''Blac ...

studio at

West Orange, New Jersey West Orange is a suburban township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 48,843, an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from the 46,207 counted in the 2010 Census.

, in the USA, which is widely referred to as "America's First Movie Studio". It was filmed on September 7, 1894. Courtney died a little over a year after the film was made. According to the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

the film was made in a 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1. The movie was intended to be displayed through means of a

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

Cast

as Boxer (Boxing hero of the time) *

as Boxer (Underdog)

Current status

The film's

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

has now expired and it is freely available on the internet to download. A copy is kept by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

and can be viewed on their

American Memory American Memory is an internet-based archive for public domain image resources, as well as audio, video, and archived Web content. Published by the Library of Congress, the archive launched on October 13, 1994, after $13 million was raised in ...

website. In 1997 it was featured in '' Sports on the Silver Screen'', an anthology, narrated by

Liev Schreiber Isaac Liev Schreiber (; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and narrator. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s after appearing in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywo ...

, which looks at sports in cinema from the earliest silent films. It also included on disc one of the DVD '' Edison: The Invention of the Movies''.

References

External links

Library of Congress page with the film in various formats
*
''Corbett and Courtney Before the Kinetograph''
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...