''Desperate Poaching Affray'' (known in the United States as ''The Poachers'') is a 1903 British chase film by Wales-based film producer
William Haggar
William Haggar (10 March 1851 – 4 February 1925) was a British pioneer of the cinema industry. Beginning his career as a travelling entertainer, Haggar, whose large family formed his theatre company, later bought a Bioscope show and earned his ...
. Three minutes long, the film is recognised as an early influence on narrative drama in American film, especially in the chase genre. The film used a number of innovative
techniques including
on-location shooting, panning shots, and unconventional use of screen edges. The film, along with
Frank Mottershaw
Frank Mottershaw (1850–1932) (often confused with his second son, Frank Storm Mottershaw) was an early English cinema director based in Sheffield, Yorkshire. His films, ''A Daring Daylight Burglary'' and ''The Robbery of the Mail Coach'' (featur ...
's film ''
A Daring Daylight Burglary
''A Daring Daylight Burglary'' (also known as ''A Daring Daylight Robbery'') is a 1903 British short silent film directed by Frank Mottershaw. The film was produced by the Sheffield Photo Company, and features members from the Sheffield Fire B ...
'', is considered to have helped launch the chase subgenre and influenced
Edwin S. Porter's ''
The Great Train Robbery''.
Plot
The film plot is slight and consists of a group of three hunters coming across two
poacher
Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.
Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set a ...
s. A chase ensues and the poachers flee while shots are exchanged. Despite the film's rural setting, the hunters are able to call upon police officers who join in the chase before the poachers are apprehended while crossing a stream.
Film history
British director William Haggar was a pioneer of narrative film making who began making shorts in 1902. Haggar and his family were travelling entertainers who had based themselves in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, and they shot their films in the open using the props they had acquired over their years as a theatre troupe. In 1903 Haggar shot ''Desperate Poaching Affray'', a three-minute (174 ft.) short on 35mm film.
The film stars two of Haggar's children, Walter and William Jr., a common trait of his films.
On its release the film was very successful with audiences, and was distributed by
Gaumont Film Company
The Gaumont Film Company (, ), often shortened to Gaumont, is a French film studio headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont (1864–1946) in 1895, it is the oldest extant film company in ...
in both Europe and the United States. It was so popular that it was widely pirated, and is now seen as an influential film to the chase genre, inspiring Edwin S. Porter's ''The Great Train Robbery''.
''Desperate Poaching Affray'' is in turn influenced by Frank Mottershaw's film ''A Daring Daylight Burglary'', also 1903. In Haggar's film similar to Mottershaw's there is a cutting of action, as a character runs towards the camera to leave via the screen edge. The pursuers are nowhere to be seen in one shot, before entering dramatically onto the screen from the front.
[Berry (1996) p. 51] In another cut the villains exit the scene to the left, then emerge after a cut in the foreground, in a shot that suggests the chase has been continuing for longer than the screen time.
Haggar continues to use different angles in the film and introduces his first panning shot, showing Haggar had a rudimentary understanding of early film grammar and conventions.
Despite Haggar's theatrical background, and apart from one wild over-acted haymaker swing from William Haggar Jr. as he floors an opponent, the film refuses to follow theatricality or staging.
The film was renamed as ''The Poachers'' for its release in the United States, and was first screened by travelling cinema pioneer Lyman H. Howe of Pennsylvania, who in his early days showed respectable movies to Methodist groups. Howe's biographer,
Charles Musser
Charles John Musser (born 16 January 1951) is a film historian and documentary film maker. Since 1992 he has taught at Yale University, where he is currently a professor of Film and Media Studies as well as American Studies and Theater Studies. H ...
, surmised that Howe showed the film with its 'sensationalistic violence' because as 'one of the cinema's first chase films it proved an irresistible choice.'
Musser goes on to state that both Haggar's and Mottershaw's films inspired the US 'film chase craze', stressing that ''Desperate Poaching Affray'' was one of at least three UK films copied and sold by the
Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...
,
Biograph and
Sigmund Lubin
Siegmund Lubin (born Zygmunt Lubszyński, April 20, 1851 – September 11, 1923) was an American motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia.
Biography
Siegmund Lubin was born as Zygmunt ...
's company between June and October 1903.
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Desperate Poaching Affray
1903 films
1900s British films
British crime films
British silent short films
British black-and-white films
1900s crime films
1900s chase films
Films about hunters
Silent thriller films