Attack on a China Mission is a 1900

1900 in film

The year 1900 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Reulos, Goudeau & Co. invent Mirographe, a 21 mm amateur format.* The Lumiere Brothers premiere their new Lumiere Wide format for the 1900 World Fair...

 British short

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

  silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

, directed by James Williamson

James Williamson (film pioneer)

James Williamson was an early film developer and film director.-Biography:...

, showing some sailors coming to the rescue of the wife of a missionary killed by Boxers. This four shot film, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "was a quantum leap forward in style, content, technique and ambition." "While most dramatic films of the era consisted of one or two shots and single-figure casts, Williamson's film had four shots (including a reverse angle cut, showing the entrance to the mission from two different perspectives) and at least two dozen performers." Film historian John Barnes claims it had "the most fully developed narrative of any film made in England up to that time."

Production

The director, inspired by Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...

' influential eleven-scene dramatised documentary L'Affaire Dreyfus (1899), made the film to meet a perceived public demand for footage of the Boxer Rebellion, which began in the early months of 1900, at a derelict house called Ivy Lodge in Hove, where, according to Michael Brooke, "he went to considerable lengths to ensure that his film appeared to be authentic, kitting out the house with a bilingual Anglo-Chinese 'Mission Station' sign and drawing on his background as a chemist in order to fake gunshots and explosions."

Premiere

The film was premiered at Hove Town Hall on , where, according to Michael Brooke, it, "was such a success that the audience (fruitlessly) demanded a repeat screening there and then."

Preservation

Just under half of the original 230 feet of footage survives, but, according to Michael Brooke, "it includes material from all four shots, and, "despite some obvious trims (the initial forcing of the gate is missing, and the wife's appeal on the balcony to the sailors must surely have lasted more than one second), enough remains to give a good account of what the original audience must have seen."