King John (film)

File:King John 1899.jpg

The only scene available from the film

King John is the title by which the earliest known example of a film based on a play by William Shakespeare is commonly known. Filmed in London, England in September 1899, it was a silent film made from four very short separate films, each showing a heavily edited scene from Herbert Beerbohm Tree's forthcoming stage production of Shakespeare's King John at Her Majesty's Theatre, London.

The first film was of The Temptation Scene with John, Hubert and Arthur, the second of The Lamentation Scene with Constance, Philip of France, Lewis and Pandulph, the third of King John's Dying Scene with John, Henry, Pembroke and Salisbury, the fourth of King John's Death Scene with John, Henry, Falconbridge, Pembroke and Salisbury.

The filming of King John was produced and directed by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and Walter Pfeffer Dando, the acting and production design by Herbert Tree. The cinematography was by William Dickson. A British film, the production company was the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.

The EYE Film Institute Nederland has an incomplete copy of the third film lasting just under one minute. The last seconds of the scene are missing from the EYE copy; the BFI National Archive has a film clip of a few frames of the missing part.

Cast

• King John - Herbert Beerbohm Tree
• Prince Henry - Dora Tulloch (as Dora Senior)
• Prince Arthur - Charles Sefton
• Earl of Pembroke - J. Fisher White (as James Fisher)
• Earl of Salisbury - S. A. Cookson
• Hubert de Burgh - Franklyn McLeay
• Philip Faulconbridge - Lewis Waller
• Constance - Julia Neilson
• Philip, King of France - William Mollison
• Lewis, The Dauphin - Gerald Lawrence
• Cardinal Pandulph - Louis Calvert

Further reading

• Anonymous King John Souvenir | Shakespeare's Historical Drama King John | Her Majesty's Theatre. London, England, British Mutoscope & Bioscope Company, 1899 [Theatre Programme].
• Ball, Robert Hamilton Shakespeare On Silent Film. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1968. New York, USA, Theatre Arts, 1968.
• Barnes, John The Beginnings Of The Cinema In England 1894-1901 | Volume Five: 1900. Exeter, England, Exeter University Press, 1997. ISBN 9780859895224
• Buchanan, Judith Shakespeare On Silent Film. Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780521871990
• Kachur, B. A. The First Shakespeare Film | A Reconsideration And Reconstruction Of Tree's "King John" in: Theatre Survey, Volume 32, Issue 1. Albany, New York, USA, State University of New York, 1991. ISSN 0040-5574
• McKernan, Luke & Terris, Olwen Walking Shadows | Shakespeare In The National Film And Television Archive. London, England, British Film Institute, 1994. ISBN 085170414X
• McKernan, Luke A Scene - King John - Now Playing At Her Majesty's Theatre in: Fitzsimmons, Linda & Street, Sarah Moving Performances | British Stage & Screen 1890s-1920s. Trowbridge, England, Flick Books, 1999. ISBN 9780948911545

External links

• IMDb: "King John" (1899)