Early Cinematography & The Disappearance of Louis Le Prince

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

In the 19th century moving images were everywhere. Illusionists cast tricks using mirrors and shadows, whilst flick books, magic lanterns and Zoopraxiscopes unveiled the hidden mysteries of motion to a wide-eyed audience. By the later part of the century, new advancements in photography had made the dream of motion pictures reachable for a few genius inventors, who toiled away in dingy workshops, setting fire to volatile chemicals as they cranked the handles of their machines, hoping to capture moments in time. Most now attribute the birth of cinema to either Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor, or the French Lumiere Brothers, whose projection of a train pulling into a station terrified its excited audience. But there was another man who had been working on the problem of moving photographs and had seemingly cracked it several years earlier. On the dawn of his machine's great unveiling, however, he disappeared, leaving those behind to question, where in the world was Louis Le Prince? Sources Leeds Mercury (1930) Inventor Who Vanished. Leeds Mercury, Tues 09 Dec 1930. p1. Leeds, UK. Yorkshire Evening Post (1930) Leeds Street In First Successful Moving Picture. Thurs 11 Dec 1930. p6. UK. Fischer, Paul (2022) The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures. Faber & Faber Ltd. London, UK. Rawlence, Christopher (1990) The Missing Reel: The Untold Story of the Lost Inventor of Moving Pictures. Atheneum. London, UK. New York Sun (1891) The Kinetograph. New York Sun, Thurs 28 May, 1891. P1. New York, USA. ------- This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/darkhistories and get on your way to being your best self. -------For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the 19th century, moving images were everywhere. Illusionists cast tricks using mirrors
0:07.3	and shadows whilst flick books, magic lanterns and zoop pracks of scopes unveiled the hidden
0:12.2	mysteries of motion to a wide-eyed audience. By the later part of the century, new advancements
0:17.9	in photography and made the dream of motion pictures reachable for a few genius inventors
0:23.0	who toyled away in dingy workshops, setting fire to volatile chemicals as they cranked
0:28.1	the handles of their machines hoping to catch moments in time.
0:33.1	Most now attribute the birth of cinema, either Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor,
0:38.3	or the French Lumiere Brothers whose projection of a train pulling into a station terrified
0:43.2	its excited audience. But there was another man who had been
0:46.9	working on the problem of moving photographs, and had seemingly cracked it several years
0:51.0	earlier. On the dawn of his machine's great unveiling, however, he disappeared, leaving
0:57.0	his nose behind to question, where in the world was Louis Leprint? This is Dark History's,
1:04.0	where the facts are worse than fiction.
1:12.0	Hello and welcome to season 7, episode 2 of Dark History's, I am Ben, as always.
1:18.0	Now, this week's episode, I don't have a lot to say before we start, I do just want
1:21.7	to give a quick shout out to Judith, who picked up a book for me from my Amazon wishlist,
1:28.4	and it's really helped me out with this episode. It came literally right in the nick of time
1:32.2	that you wouldn't believe how helpful it was getting it and being able to confirm a few
1:36.6	details. So, yeah, thank you very much for that, and without further ado, let's jump
1:41.5	straight into it. This is Early Cinematography and the Disappearance of Louis Leprint.
1:51.4	For the late 19th century, photography had matured into a mass medium. Portrait studios
1:56.7	charged punters 25 cents a throw to stand in front of a choice of painted backdrops and
	...

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