Rip Van Winkle
AKA Joseph Jefferson in a Scene from Rip Van Winkle in the USA
(1897) American
B&W : Short film
Directed by Wallace McCutcheon

Cast: Joseph Jefferson [Rip Van Winkle]

American Mutoscope Company production; distributed by American Mutoscope Company. / Cinematography by [?] G.W. Bitzer? / Premiere 12 October 1896 at Hammerstein’s Olympia Music Hall Theatre in New York, New York. / Mutoscope 68mm spherical 1.36:1 format. / The production was shot at approximately 36 frames per second. The film was made for Biograph projection and was shown for the first Biograph system program. The Joseph Jefferson Mutoscope films were assembled into a continuous narrative and rereleased in the USA by American Mutoscope & Biograph Company in 1903. [?] Ramsaye-Million p. 216 implies that the films in the “Rip Van Winkle” series were taken late in 1895, as does Bardèche-History p. 43.

Drama: Fantasy.

Synopsis: Rip Van Winkle story.

Survival Status: (unknown)

Listing updated: 17 September 2007.

References: Ball-Shakespeare pp. 22, 389; Bardèche-History p. 43; Blum-Silent p. 8; Ramsaye-Million p. 216; Robinson-Palace pp. 64, 123; Shipman-Cinema p. 28; Slide-Early p. 12.