Directed by: Max Skladanowsky
When it comes to the early years of cinema, it is difficult to attribute “firsts” with absolute certainty, largely due to lost records, lost media, rumors and general misconceptions made popular. Likewise, while it is generally accepted that the first public screening of films was by the Lumière brothers, they were preceded by two German brothers, Max and Emil Skladanowsky, by almost two months.
On November 1, 1895, they screened their Wintergartenprogramm to a paying audience at the Berlin Wintergarten Varieté. The full program consisted of:
Italienischer Bauerntanz
Komisches Reck
Das Boxende Känguruh
Jongleur
Akrobatisches Potpurri
Kamarinskaja
Serpentintanz
Ringkämpfer
Apotheose
The films were projected using Max Skladanowsky’s Bioscop dual projector. As the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe was superior to the Bioscop, the Skladanowsky brothers soon fell into obscurity.
One of the more memorable shorts in the program was Das Boxende Känguruh, as evident by Birt Acres’ “remake” the following year, The Boxing Kangaroo (1896). It was not uncommon for early filmmakers to replicate popular films. Even in the Skladanowsky brothers’ program, there is a version of the Serpentine Dance and the Lumière brothers would screen Les Forgerons, a variation of Blacksmith Scene.
Bibliography
Blankenship, J. (2012). ‘1 November 1895: Premiere of Wintergarten Program Highlights Transitional Nature of Early Film Technology’. In: Kapczynski, J. M. & Richardson, M. D. (ed.) A New History of German Cinema. New York: Camden House.
IMDb contributors (n.d. a). ‘Das boxende Känguruh (1895)’, IMDb. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000018/ [Accessed: 4 December 2021].
INDb contributors (n.d. b). ‘Wintergartenprogramm (1895)’, IMDb, Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754898/ [Accessed: 10 December 2021].
Wikipedia contributors (2021a). ‘Boxing Kangaroo (film)’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 July. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Kangaroo_(film) [Accessed: 4 December 2021].
Wikipedia contributors (2021b). ‘The Boxing Kangaroo’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 March. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boxing_Kangaroo [Accessed: 4 December 2021].
Reel Lessons 