The Boxing Cats (Prof. Welton's)

The cats in this movie must have retired from showbiz by now. At least I hope so

What was one of the biggest ways to cash in when it came to the motion picture industry? Simple answer: steal the popularity of other attractions, one of the best things the Edison Co. was good at. This is not at all to say that the great inventor was a crook who would do anything to get money (although some people who believe he actually did electrocute that elephant would say that) but it is true that during the company's earliest years in the filmmaking business, he would often hire athletes and performers who were huge hits at the time to come down to the Black Maria studio in New Jersey and do their routine for film. For the sake of protecting the man, I'd vouch it was not a way to steal away the glory of the performer but probably more for the sake of those who never had a chance to view the act for themselves. In this way, Edison would not really be taking all the fame for himself but instead advertising the sensation through the new motion picture system.

"Boxing Cats" is a good example of such a film. In this case, Edison hired Henry Welton (a professor of sorts, though I don't know of what) to come down to his studio in order to have his boxing cats act be filmed. Shown in medium closeup, the comical match (that is, comical to everyone except PETA members) is a twenty-second clip showing the cats going at it, while Welton stands in the background acting as the referee. Furthermore, because of the utter hilarity of the little gloves on the cats and the way they swipe at each-other, some consider this to be the first LOLcat video ever made and thus the oldest 'cat video' on the internet. From my own research this is certainly debatable, however; after all, Etienne-Jules Marey had created "Falling Cat" the same year with his chronophotographic gun, which could also be given the title despite the fact I know no dates to prove which came first. Clearly whoever started such a rumor has been little educated about this point in history or merely doesn't consider Marey's film a LOLcat video.

However, the most interesting point of "Boxing Cats" comes not from the historical interest surrounding it or the fact it shows a once-popular act of the day, but from the way it combines two different genres used previously in Edison company shorts to create a different variation. As I mentioned before, filming dancers, athletes or any sort of performers would help bring publicity to the sensation's act. This genre, the performance-for-camera genre, is the first one combined. On top of that, another big genre, which I treat differently from the performances, was boxing. Edison loved filming boxing and must have made a whole series of boxing shorts featuring known boxers performing a championship match within the Black Maria. Films such as "Corbett and Courtney Before the Kinetograph", "The Leonard-Cushing Fight", "The Hornbacker-Murphy Fight", even the camera tests "Men Boxing" (1891) and "Boxing" (1892) all fall within the genre. Thus, by putting both together, you have a unique little performance which was no doubt a real hit when shown in the Kinetoscope parlors. On a side note, this wasn't the first time the company had done a variation on the boxing genre; the idea of having a comedic boxing contest between animals had occurred as early as "Monkey and Another, Boxing" (camera test, 1891).

Shortly after the early Kinetoscope experiment "Leonard-Cushing Fight", featuring the two boxers Jack Cushing and Mike Leonard in a boxing match, this movie got made at the Thomas Edison's Black Maria Studios, featuring two cats, fully equipped with boxing gloves, having a go at each other. So perhaps with some imagination you can call this movie the first ever made spoof and it certainly is the first ever done comical subject at the Thomas Edison's Black Maria Studios.

The subject of Professor Welton (exactly what was he a professor in I wonder?) Vaudeville's act of two boxing cats is sort of amusing and cute. No doubt that animal right organizations now days would do anything to ban this movie from being shown was it made today but truth is that this is a pretty harmless act. The gloves take away a lot of the blow, so no cats got harmed during the making of this motion picture and actually seeing cats fight on the streets with their claws is of course something far more violent and violent looking, even though it's just nature, unlike obviously putting gloves on a couple of cats and let them fight in a small boxing ring.

Henry Welton himself (the professor from this movie its title) sets the cats up against each other and he can be seen picking them up toward each other. These two cats obviously had no grudge toward each other but were put up to it to fight. Perhaps not the most kind thing to do but you also have to remember that this was 1894 when these sort of animal vaudeville acts were very common and part of everyday's life.

The camera is pretty close up to the fight but it covers the entire fighting area. It's not entirely symmetric, since it only shows one side of the ring. Nevertheless it's an effective composition, since it shows everything that needs to be seen and apart from its shaking images, it's perfect. The same can be said about the quality of the movie. Hardly any grain here in this one.

A nice little comical turn from the boys at the Edison Manufacturing Company.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

You thought Charlie Chaplin invented slapstick? Pfah! How typical. I bet your favorite show is MTV as well, isn't it? And you listen to 50 Cent? Kids these days.

This Edison short is hilarious, although you have to be very tired when watching it. Exhausted, in fact. But it will get a laugh out of anyone who enjoys silly comedy in the vein of Dumb and Dumber, Monthy Python, etc.

10/10. The first, and one of the funniest, comedies I've ever seen. Great sight gags and the film doesn't go on so long it wears out its welcome.(r#11)

A great many of the earliest Edison Kinetoscope movies featured popular performers who presented samples of their vaudeville acts or other similar specialties. There were also a fair number of early Edison features that showed boxing. This short movie combines the two genres, and it also demonstrates rather efficient composition in its use of the camera.

Professor Henry Welton apparently had an entire vaudeville act that featured cats trained to perform all kinds of tricks, so that the "Boxing Cats" routine was really only one of many such routines in the full show. The high popularity of boxing at the time probably made this a fairly obvious choice for the Edison crew to film.

The footage shows a tiny boxing ring, with the cats batting away at each other with their paws. The camera field catches the entire ring plus Welton behind it, looking on, so that even in a limited field it includes the entire scene. The miniature boxing gloves on their forepaws makes it look much like human boxing of a kind. It seems to have been largely harmless for the cats involved, since the gloves would probably have prevented them from inflicting any injuries on each other.

The footage itself is mildly entertaining, and the movie is also worthy of note as an example of the content and technique in the early Kinetoscope films.