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Fortunately the first two films in LGM’s Night at the Movies series are either selections that I haven’t seen at all or haven’t seen in a very long time. I remember when the Madness of King George came out in 1994, and if I’d been living in Seattle at the time instead of Eugene and I suspect I would have watched it in the theater (I used to see 60-70s movies a year in Seattle’s fabulous film scene). Things were a lot tougher in Eugene, which at the time really only had one independent cinema, which itself was infested by hippies. In any case, I only later developed an appreciation for Nigel Hawthorne (Yes, Minister) and Helen Mirren (every goddamn thing), and while I had vaguely planned to watch it at some point I have never gotten around to it… until tonight. Thank Chris Mote for this choice, and if you want to contribute something for the next Night at the Movies go ahead and say so in the Patreon film thread. We hit play on the main feature at 9pm ET.
Here is Dr. Loomis introduce this evening’s featurette:
Someone suggested in an email that I provide a short to these film showings and I thought, wow, that’s a great idea. As should be pretty clear, I have a good knowledge of our weird film history, especially very early film. And so when the powers that be decided that The Madness of King George was tonight’s film, I was curious–what is the first known film about the British monarchy or associated issues. I’m not 100% sure this is in fact the very first, but it’s close. So I present to you 1895’s The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. This is an Edison film and a very early one. When imagining what to make movies about, you can see how the people behind this were, uh, representing their time in some ways that we might not expect, for example, “let’s have two cats box.” Interesting moments from history were at the top of the list, but not always easy to film. Technically, this is pretty good because it manages the execution without looking ridiculous, at least by the standards of films made during the Cleveland administration. Enjoy! Hit play at your own discretion; I’ll be running it at 8:50.
