Desperate Poaching Affray
Encyclopedia
Desperate Poaching Affray (known in the United States as The Poachers) is a 1903 British chase film by William Haggar
. Three minutes long, the film is recognised as an early influence on narrative drama in American film, especially in chase genre. The film used a number of innovative techniques including on location
shooting, panning shots and clever use of screen edges. The film, along with Frank Mottershaw
's film A Daring Daylight Burglary, is considered to have helped launch the chase sub-genre and influenced Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery.
, and they shot their films in the open using the props they had acquired over their years as a theatre troupe. In 1903 Haggar shot Desperate Poaching Affray, a three minute (174 ft.) short on 35mm film. The film stars two of Haggar's children, Walter and William Jr., a common trait of his films. The film plot is slight and consists of a group of three hunters coming across two poachers. A chase ensues and the poachers flee while shots are exchanged. Despite the film's rural setting, the hunters are able to call upon police officers who join in the chase before the poachers are apprehended while crossing a stream.
On its release the film was very successful with audiences, and was distributed by Gaumont Film Company
in both Europe and the United States. It was so popular that it was widely pirated, and is now seen as an influential film to the chase genre, inspiring Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery.
Desperate Poaching Affray is in turn influenced by Frank Mottershaw's film A Daring Daylight Burglary, also 1903. In Haggar's film similar to Mottershaw's there is a cutting of action, as a character runs towards the camera to leave via the screen edge. The pursuers are nowhere to be seen in one shot, before entering dramatically onto the screen from the front. In another cut the villans exit the scene to the left, then emege after a cut in the foreground, in a shot that suggests the chase has been continuing for longer than the screen time. Haggar continues to use different angles in the film and introduces his first panning shot, showing Haggar had a rudimentary understanding of early film grammar and conventions. Despite Haggar's theatrical background, and apart from one wild over-acted haymaker swing from William Haggar Jr. as he floors an opponent, the film refuses to follow theatricality or staging.
The film was renamed as The Poachers for its release in the United States, and was first screened by travelling cinema pioneer Lyman H. Howe of Pennsylvania, who in his early days showed respectable movies to Methodist groups. Howe's biographer, Charles Musser
, summised that Howe showed the film with its 'sensationalistic violence' because as 'one of the cinema's first chase films it proved an irresistible choice.' Musser goes on to state that both Haggar's and Mottershaw's films inspired the US 'film chase craze', stressing that Desperate Poaching Affray was one of at least three UK films copied and sold by the Edison
, Biograph
and Sigmund Lubin's company between June and October 1903.
William Haggar
William Haggar was a British pioneer of the cinema industry. Beginning his career as a travelling entertainer, Haggar, whose large family formed his theatre company, later bought a Bioscope show and earned his money in the fairgrounds of south Wales...
. Three minutes long, the film is recognised as an early influence on narrative drama in American film, especially in chase genre. The film used a number of innovative techniques including on location
Filming location
A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage...
shooting, panning shots and clever use of screen edges. The film, along with Frank Mottershaw
Frank Mottershaw
Frank Mottershaw was an early English cinema director based in Sheffield, Yorkshire. His films, A Daring Daylight Burglary and The Robbery of the Mail Coach , made in April and September 1903, are regarded as highly influential on the development of Edwin Porter’s paradigmatic...
's film A Daring Daylight Burglary, is considered to have helped launch the chase sub-genre and influenced Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery.
Film history
British director William Haggar was a pioneer of narrative film making who began making shorts in 1902. Haggar and his family were travelling entertainers who had based themselves in WalesWales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and they shot their films in the open using the props they had acquired over their years as a theatre troupe. In 1903 Haggar shot Desperate Poaching Affray, a three minute (174 ft.) short on 35mm film. The film stars two of Haggar's children, Walter and William Jr., a common trait of his films. The film plot is slight and consists of a group of three hunters coming across two poachers. A chase ensues and the poachers flee while shots are exchanged. Despite the film's rural setting, the hunters are able to call upon police officers who join in the chase before the poachers are apprehended while crossing a stream.
On its release the film was very successful with audiences, and was distributed by Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
in both Europe and the United States. It was so popular that it was widely pirated, and is now seen as an influential film to the chase genre, inspiring Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery.
Desperate Poaching Affray is in turn influenced by Frank Mottershaw's film A Daring Daylight Burglary, also 1903. In Haggar's film similar to Mottershaw's there is a cutting of action, as a character runs towards the camera to leave via the screen edge. The pursuers are nowhere to be seen in one shot, before entering dramatically onto the screen from the front. In another cut the villans exit the scene to the left, then emege after a cut in the foreground, in a shot that suggests the chase has been continuing for longer than the screen time. Haggar continues to use different angles in the film and introduces his first panning shot, showing Haggar had a rudimentary understanding of early film grammar and conventions. Despite Haggar's theatrical background, and apart from one wild over-acted haymaker swing from William Haggar Jr. as he floors an opponent, the film refuses to follow theatricality or staging.
The film was renamed as The Poachers for its release in the United States, and was first screened by travelling cinema pioneer Lyman H. Howe of Pennsylvania, who in his early days showed respectable movies to Methodist groups. Howe's biographer, Charles Musser
Charles Musser
Charles Musser is Professor of Film and American Studies at Yale University. He is a prominent film historian and documentary film maker who has "added a great deal to our knowledge of early cinema with his writings and his filmmaking."...
, summised that Howe showed the film with its 'sensationalistic violence' because as 'one of the cinema's first chase films it proved an irresistible choice.' Musser goes on to state that both Haggar's and Mottershaw's films inspired the US 'film chase craze', stressing that Desperate Poaching Affray was one of at least three UK films copied and sold by the Edison
Edison Studios
Edison Studios was an American motion picture production company owned by the Edison Company of inventor Thomas Edison. The studio made close to 1,200 films as the Edison Manufacturing Company and Thomas A. Edison, Inc. until the studio's closing in 1918...
, Biograph
Biograph Studios
Biograph Studios was a studio facility and film laboratory complex built in 1912 by the Biograph Company, formerly American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, at 807 E. 175th Street, in the Bronx, New York....
and Sigmund Lubin's company between June and October 1903.