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"The Life and Death of King Richard III": A 1912 Silent Film Production
From: American Film Institute
| By:
Patricia King Hanson |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
In a November 1912 interview conducted just one month after the release of The Life and Death of King Richard III feature film, Frederick Warde, a veteran Shakespearean actor and star of the film, said, "Shakespeare's plays can, with little skillful handling, be made into very effective photoplays ... visualizing as never before pictures that have been left to the imagination."  Eighty-four years later, this Richard III production--the first film to attempt a complete retelling of one of Shakespeare's works and the oldest American feature film known to exist--was donated to the American Film Institute archive, introducing another generation of viewers to this historic adaptation of one of Shakespeare's finest history plays.
Accompanied by a plot synopsis of the play, this feature by Patricia King Hanson, executive editor and project director of the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, uses short video clips to explore early-twentieth century film production techniques and explains how public screenings of the silent film were often introduced by Warde, differentiating for viewers aspects of the play from the real Richard III. |
 n 1912, the first year of feature filmmaking in the United States, eight features were produced. These longer-length films, which had the then extraordinarily long running times of more than 40 minutes, ranged from the historical biography Cleopatra to the documentary The Alaska-Siberia Expedition. Not surprisingly, filmmakers decided that one of author Charles Dickens's most popular works, Oliver Twist, was a suitable subject for the new length, as was William Shakespeare's The Life and Death of King Richard III. |
Preserving the oldest American feature film
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| In this silent film clip, dialogue and plot development is represented through staged actions. | |
Although fragments of some of the 1912 features have survived, today, Richard III (1912) is the oldest complete American feature film known to exist. Yet, even Richard III was thought to be a "lost film" for decades, with very little information available on the plot or construction of the film. In 1996, however, a nitrate print of the Richard III was donated to AFI by Portland, Oregon, private collector William Buffum. A lifelong film enthusiast and former projectionist, Buffum had lovingly cared for the film for many years. He knew that he had a treasure, but was not fully aware of how much of a treasure until he donated his print to AFI. |
In mid-September 1996, the discovery that the film was the oldest surviving American feature film became worldwide news. Every network evening news program reported the find, and The New York Times devoted a front-page story to it, the first time that a film preservation story had made it to the paper's front page. |
Following a restoration of the remarkably well-preserved nitrate film, which had much of it's original tinting intact, a safety print of Richard III was deposited in the AFI Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Later, the film was made available on both VHS tape and DVD, with a new score written by noted film composer Ennio Morricone and a 17-minute documentary about the film and its historical context. |
The value of the film as a cornerstone of American cinema history was established by virtue of the fact that it existed. However, beyond that historical milestone, the film can be appreciated on many levels. In addition to being the oldest American feature film still in existence, Richard III is also the oldest feature-length adaptation of a Shakespearean play, the first film to attempt a complete retelling of one of his works. There had been earlier Shakespeare adaptations to film, both in Europe and the United States, but most ran a scant 10 to 15 minutes and offered little more than a flavor of the originals. |
From stage to screen
With the 1912 Richard III, audiences were treated to the cinematic equivalent to a night in the theatre, with the added attraction of having more lavish sets, a large cast and a significant number of exterior scenes. Like all film adaptations, though, Richard III was not a completely accurate retelling of Shakespeare's play. The long play was reduced to about 50 minutes, with many aspects of the plot lightly touched upon or greatly condensed. Other changes were made to accommodate what the filmmakers must have assumed were the unsophisticated audiences who would see the film throughout the United States. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, for example, is called the Duke of "Gloster" on the film's credits and title cards, a spelling of the name that was more phonetically suitable to the average American. |
The staging of the film may look somewhat crude to modern audiences, and the acting occasionally appears overly dramatic, but viewing the film yields a fascinating glimpse into what nineteenth and early-twentieth century audiences must have seen in a theatrical production of a Shakespearean play. |
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| After King Edward's death, Richard III, played by Frederick Warde, is crowned as king. | |
The film stars British-born Frederick Warde (1851-1935), an actor widely known in the US for his Shakespearean roles. According to a September 11, 1912, New York Dramatic Mirror news item, Warde had not appeared on the stage for "several years" but had been lecturing on Shakespearean plays in which he previously had acted. His influence on American actors of the period was significant, and biographical sources reveal that popular stage and screen star Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., acknowledged Warde as his acting mentor. Richard III was the first of 11 motion pictures that Warde was known to have made. He made only one additional Shakespeare film, playing the title role in King Lear (1916), before his retirement from the screen after the 1925 film A Lover's Oath. |
As stated in ads for the film, the production cost $30,000, a remarkable amount for a film of the period. In a November 1912 Brooklyn Eagle interview with Warde, the actor stated that the film was shot on location on the grounds of "Judge Carey's place on City Island [Long Island Sound]. The ruins of the house were transformed into settings for the different scenes, the cellar...used as tower dungeons and other things." In Warde's memoirs, published in 1923, he further remarked that some exteriors and battle scenes were photographed in Westchester County, NY. |
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| Large casts and exterior sets were used for much of this production, as shown in this first clip from the film. | |
A number of the exterior scenes, including the Battle of Bosworth Field, appear in large expanses, and in a superimposed dream sequence, a sailing ship dressed as a fifteenth century vessel, is seen in a harbor. Several of the film's scenes, both interior and exterior, featured as many as 100 lavishly costumed extras. Although, by present-day standards, some of the interior sets appear to be rather poorly painted backdrops, they were more than adequate when compared with films of the time. |
For film historians, one of the most intriguing aspects of the production is its extensive use of tinted scenes. During the early part of the twentieth century, films were shot in black and white but were frequently either toned (processed in various color washes) or hand-tinted. Hand tinting was very labor-intensive work that required artists to color in portions of the prints to illuminate things such as costumes, furniture or other individual parts of a shot. Toning was done for entire scenes to make them appear awash in color. A scene set in bright daylight, such as the one shown on right, might appear in a bright yellow, whereas a night scene might appear dark blue. Although some of the color in Richard III has faded, much of the film appears in various rose-colored shades, with some scenes in blue, yellow and green. |
In this short clip, originally tinted in bright yellow, King Henry VI is murdered by King Edward of York.
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Like all films of the early 1910s, Richard III is silent, but contains a number of beautifully printed title cards that interrupt the action and announce the next scene. There are little or no cards expressing written dialogue, a practice that became more prevalent in the 1920s. In early silent films, written title cards, as well the dramatized situations, characteristically "telegraphed" what was  taking place rather than providing long explanations. For example, the title card for the clip shown in the above paragraph, reads, "Murder of King Henry VI, the last of the house of Lancaster, as King Edward of York enters London ..." And the first title card (shown on right) introduces the film with elegant script. In the case of Richard III, many audiences would also have the added benefit of Warde himself explaining what was being presented on screen. |
Introducing the silent production
News items in the New York dramatic paper The New York Dramatic Mirror indicate that Richard III was screened at a private showing in New York on October 6, 1912, and that public screenings of the film were to be held from October 15 at "a Broadway house" where Warde would "give a lecture before the curtain." Reviews contained in the copyright registry file on the film reveal that in early January 1913 Warde gave lectures on the film when it was exhibited in Augusta and Savannah, Ga., Jacksonville, Fla., and other southern cities. As an added bonus for those who were unable to see Warde in person, the film features a brief prologue and epilogue in which the stately Warde, dressed in a contemporary suit, bows before the audience. |
It is unknown what Warde would have said in those accompanying lectures, but undoubtedly would have discussed Shakespeare's play and possibly have discussed the real Richard III. The historical Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the brother of Yorkish King Edward IV, who ascended the throne after the death of the Lancastrian King Henry VI. Following Edward's death in 1483, Richard became king. The last of the York line, Richard was killed during a battle with Henry, Earl of Richmond at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. |
Richmond then became Henry VII, the first Tudor king, thus ending the Wars of the Roses. Since the sixteenth century, much of what has been commonly considered Richard's physical deformities and evil-doing emanated from the play by Shakespeare, who received patronage from Queen Elizabeth I, granddaughter of Henry VII. Through the centuries, historical interpretations of Richard have often differed from the sinister, deformed figure portrayed in Shakespeare's play. |
There have been many film and television adaptations of Shakespeare's play, beginning in September 1908 with a one-reel Vitagraph Co. adaptation directed by and starring William V. Ranous. Other film and television adaptations include a two-reel British production made in 1911, directed by and starring Sir Richard F. Benson; an 18- minute BBC teleplay broadcast in April 1937, starring Ernest Milton; a one-hour NBC teleplay broadcast on July 30, 1950, directed by Albert McCleery and starring William Windom; a 1955 British film directed by and starring Laurence Olivier; a 1983 four-hour BBC teleplay directed by Jane Howell and starring Ron Cook; and a 1995 British film, set in 1930s England, directed by Richard Loncraine and starring Sir Ian McKellan. Al Pacino produced and starred in a 1996 feature film, Looking for Richard, which is a partial documentary on the staging of Richard III, with extensive footage of a performance of the play. |
The historical figure of Richard III was also featured in the 1939 Universal film Tower of London, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, and a 1962 United Artists release of the same name, directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price and Michael Pate. Portions of Richard III also figured into the plot of the 1955 Twentieth Century-Fox film Prince of Players, directed by Philip Dunne and starring Richard Burton as actor Edwin Booth. The 1977 Warner Bros. comedy The Goodbye Girl, directed by Herbert Ross and based on Neil Simon's play, featured Richard Dreyfuss as an actor portraying an avant garde version of Richard III. |
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