Annie Oakley

Like many of the earliest Edison Kinetoscope movies, this one showed a popular entertainment figure performing one of her specialties. It's an interesting attempt, and it's nice to have something preserved on film of Annie Oakley, one of the legends of her day. But the footage that resulted is clearly limited by the constraints of the studio.

Like most of the earliest Edison movies, this was filmed inside their 'Black Maria' studio. That setting worked very well in producing movies of various dancers, vaudeville acts, and the like. But with Annie Oakley, it forces her to squeeze her routine into an area much smaller than normal, and while she does a pretty good job anyway, it's clear that under the conditions to which she was more accustomed, she would have done much better.

It was not long at all before the Edison film-makers began to film subjects outdoors when it better suited the material. Even then, though, the scale and speed of Oakley's regular act would probably have created an insurmountable challenge to film with the equipment available in the 1890s. All the same, it's nice to be able to see moving footage of her, so as to be able to flesh out this legendary figure just a little bit better.

A little slice of American History from the Edison Black Maria studio from November of 1894 shows the real life Annie Oakley shooting fixed targets and airbourne tossed glass balls. Truly a fascinating little piece of film that bridges the real Wild West with a theme that was to run through countless fictional movies in the century to follow.

This short film is important for 2 reasons: One, because it's real footage of the legendary Annie Oakley; two, because it is the earliest known depiction of the American west. Not The Great Train Robbery (1903), not Kindnapping by Indians (1899), but this. In 1894, there were anthers like this - Bucking Bronco, Sioux Ghost Dance, - but this is the earliest. While The Great Train Robbery kickstarted the genre as a 12 minute story, this film was the beginning. However, this is just a 20 second recording. So it isn't much, but I gave it a 10 star rating because its an important part of history, and it's impressive to see someone with such good aim exploding glass orbs. It's obviously not iconic or a masterpiece, but it's a great way to spend 26 seconds, and everyone should see it.

As the commercial exploitation of the kinetoscope grew, filmmakers realized they needed to produce films that appealed to an audience that included middle-class women. This film was produced with this audience in mind where Oakley demonstrated her awesome marksmanship.

Great short film of what is possibly the first film featuring a firearm. Annie Oakley shows off her stuff and looks very good doing it.

10* (10* Rating System)

Like many of Dickson and Heise's performance movies, such as the well-known "Annabelle" series, this brief film serves a much different purpose when viewed today than when originally released. In the beginning, the biggest reason Edison's company was so into shooting vaudeville acts and other various sensations of the period was, obviously, to promote the titular performer further as well as cashing in on showing brief sneak peeks of the act through this new medium. Like all of the performance movies, "Annie Oakley" did help this cause, but today serves a completely different purpose than normally. Frequently, watching films of Luis Martinetti, Hadj Cheriff and others help us remember these forgotten historical figures: yet, in this case we can use Edison's record of the act to acquire an idea of what Oakley's skill was like when viewed all those years ago. Clearly her persona is already very well known, and does not need any more recognition; so a film like this one helps illustrate the original fame of the performer rather than serving as a purpose to remember a forgotten historic sensation.

As such, "Annie Oakley" would be a must-see short for any film historians or (more importantly) history buffs. The famous sharpshooter was filmed only once in the Black Maria studio on September 24 1894, a date on which many members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (including "Buffalo Bill" Cody himself) were shot in order to promote their acts further into Europe. (Indeed, the show itself would also be touring European continents shortly after these movies were made, which shows how Edison probably wanted an excuse to introduce his invention to other countries). In this thirty-second clip, the only known motion picture record of Oakley, Annie is shown inside the studio against that boring black background we've gotten used to, shooting several rows of glass balls in rapid succession. A man (very probably Francis E. Butler, her husband) then assists her in tossing coins into the air which she shoots down one by one.

We can only speculate why Edison chose to film Oakley in such an unnatural setting. As Snow Leopard has already pointed out, it's clear she isn't always always right on the mark and occasionally takes two shots before getting a hit. A more natural setting might have been a rodeo ring, (like the one used for Bucking Broncho) in which she may have felt more confident and/or comfortable with her marksmanship. Alas, that wasn't the case at all, and it would be a couple more years until shooting on location became a more practiced concept with the Edison studios.

Nonetheless, "Annie Oakley" is a very important record simply because of the famous historical figure it portrays. As is the case with most cinema of this period, watching brief documentary snippets such as these allow us to get an idea of what was popular during the time. Keeping that in mind, every Edison performance short, entertaining or not, is worth seeing simply because of how they depict long forgotten life of all those years ago.