Setting the scene

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This article was published 30/04/2022 (1603 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, is widely recognized as the genius behind many culture-changing inventions, among them the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph and motion pictures. So, it may come as a surprise that The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies is not about him. It’s about Louis Le Prince, and it’s truly a fascinating story.

Le Prince was born in France in 1841, studied in Germany, worked on his inventions in Leeds, England and, when he disappeared mysteriously in 1890, had a wife and children living in New York waiting for his triumphant return. He had, so he told his wife, perfected his motion picture machinery, patented it in several European countries and had arranged to show it soon after he arrived stateside. He was never heard from again.

The intrigue surrounding Le Prince’s disappearance has long been the subject of careful conjecture and crazed conspiracy theories. To solve the mystery, Paul Fischer weaves together what is in essence a forensic biography of the little-known inventor, his competitors, his era and the progress of Le Prince’s experimental efforts. It is a masterfully crafted and captivating story.

Fischer is the author of 2015’s A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power. That book is, as advertised, truly extraordinary; it was an Amazon Best of the Year selection in non-fiction and a Library Journal Top Ten Book of the Year. His new book is not quite as sensational, but it is equally as well written and credible.

Many would-be inventors were attempting to create motion picture machines in the last decade and a half of the 19th century. In fact, Edison seems to have been less interested than others. He would usually come up with ideas and assign their testing and product development to his underlings.

On October 8, 1888, Edison asked his lawyers to seek a caveat — a sort of pre-patent — on what he called his kinetoscope. It was an idea that was very thin on details; it married his phonograph and the process of a series of still photographs that Eadweard Muybridge used to study motion. Edison assigned his assistant, W.K.L. Dickson, the task of working out the details.

Six days after Edison sought his caveat, Le Prince assembled his family and friends in his garden to capture on paper-based Kodak film their cavortings in his garden. He shot the film via a mahogany box with dual lenses and brass fittings that he called a “taker” or “receiver.” The next day he showed the developed film through his “deliverer.” Fragments of that film and another street scene still exist as the first motion pictures ever made successfully.

Trouble was, once Le Prince disappeared, it took his family seven years to have him officially declared dead and for them to claim his patents. Meanwhile, on May 28, 1891, Edison’s kinetoscope was announced as complete. It was not in any way like the ideas proposed in the caveat of 1888, and very suspiciously similar to Le Prince’s invention. Le Prince’s wife Lizzie had no chance in a lawsuit.

Thus the myth began that Edison invented the movies — and the conspiracy theory that Edison had something to do with Le Prince’s disappearance.

Fischer’s is not the first biography of Le Prince. What distinguishes his book is the vivid portraits of the people involved, the clear descriptions of steps taken by the several inventors, Fischer’s reliance on the unpublished memoirs of Lizzie Le Prince (a truly heroic character) and his entirely reasonable solution to Le Prince’s cold-case disappearance.

Even if you’re not interested in the origin of what many think was the most important invention of its time, The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures is a great book worth reading.

Gene Walz taught film courses at the University of Manitoba for nearly 40 years.