1898 in film

Events

• May 19 - Vitagraph is founded in New York.
• Birt Acres invents the first amateur format, Birtac, by splitting 35 mm film into two halves of 17.5 mm.
• August 27 - Alfred John West gives Royal Command Performance to Queen Victoria of film from the cruise of HMS Crescent at Osborne House

Films released in 1898

• The Astronomer's Dream, directed by Georges Méliès
• The Ball Game
• Come Along Do, directed by Robert W. Paul
• Corbett and Sharkey Fight
• Dewar's It's Scotch, the first advertising movie, produced by the Edison Studios
• Don Juan Tenorio, the first Mexican film with a plot
• The Humpty Dumpty Circus, directed by J. Stuart Blackton
• The Magician, directed by Georges Méliès
• The Miller and the Sweep, directed by George Albert Smith
• The Nearsighted School Teacher
• Pack Train On Chilkoot Pass, film shows landscape in Chilkoot Pass, Alaska or British Columbia
• Photographing a Ghost, directed by George Albert Smith.
• Surrender of General Toral
• Smích a pláč (Laugh and Tears), the first Czech film
• Santa Claus, directed by George Albert Smith. May include the first example of parallel action in a motion picture.

Debuts

• Josef Å váb-Malostranský
• Johnston Forbes-Robertson - Macbeth

• Salvador Toscano

Births

• January 22
  • Denise Legeay, French actress (died 1968)
  • Sergei Eisenstein, Russian director (died 1948)
• January 23 â€" Randolph Scott, American actor (died 1987)
• February 19 â€" Václav Wasserman, Czech actor, screenwriter and director (died 1967)
• March 11 â€" Dorothy Gish, American actress (died 1968)
• March 27 â€" Alma Tell, American actress (died 1934)
• April 9 â€" Paul Robeson, American singer and actor (died 1976)
• April 26 â€" John Grierson, Scottish documentary filmmaker (died 1972)
• May 16 â€" Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese film director and screenwriter (died 1956)
• July 10 - Renée Björling, Swedish actress (died 1975)
• July 23 - Bengt Djurberg, Swedish actor (died 1941)
• August 30 â€" Shirley Booth, American actress (died 1992)
• September 14 â€" Hal B. Wallis, American film producer (died 1986)
• September 23 â€" Jadwiga Smosarska, Polish actress (died 1971)
• October 3 â€" Leo McCarey, American director (died 1969)
• November 8 â€" Marie Prevost, Canadian-born American actress (died 1937)
• December 20 â€" Irene Dunne, American actress (died 1990)

References