''The Execution of Mary Stuart'' is a

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

produced in

1895 Events January–March * January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. * January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Histor ...

. The film depicts the

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

Mary, Queen of Scots Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567. The only surviving legitimate child of James V of S ...

. It is the first known film to use

special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual ...

s, specifically the

stop trick The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots while maintaining th ...

. The 18-second-long film was produced by

Thomas 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 inventi ...

and directed by Alfred Clark and may have been the first film in history to use trained

actors An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...

, as well as the first to use editing for the purposes of special effects. The film shows a blindfolded Mary (played by Mr. Robert L. Thomae, male actor in Shakespeare-Tradition also for female cast) being led to the execution block. The executioner raises his axe and an edit occurs during which the actor is replaced by a mannequin. The mannequin's head is chopped off and the executioner holds it in the air as the film ends.

Availability

This film is in the public domain.

External links

* * *
''The Execution of Mary Stuart'' for download

* 1895 films 1895 horror films 1890s American films American black-and-white films American silent short films Films set in Tudor England Films about Mary, Queen of Scots Films about capital punishment Films set in Northamptonshire Articles containing video clips American horror films Films produced by Thomas Edison 1895 short films Decapitation Silent horror films {{short-silent-film-stub

Availability

See also

External links