Chinese Opium Den (1894)

Directed by

William Kennedy Dickson

Genre

documentary film, silent film

Country

United States

Runtime

1 min

Rating

3.0 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An early silent short film from Thomas Edison's studio showing a scene in an opium den. It is one of the first movies to deal with drug use but no known copy of the film survives today.

historicalsilentshortstarkminimalistdatedobscurefactualgrainy

What happens

Chinese Opium Den (also known as Opium Joint) is an 1894 American short black-and-white silent film. It is an early motion picture produced by Thomas Edison. Very little is known about the film as no print is believed to exist and all that remains is a single still image. It is believed to be the first motion picture to explore the issue of drug usage. Ten years later, Edison produced Rube in an Opium Joint, which is seen as the earliest such film that still survives. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film was made in a 35mm film format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The film was intended to be displayed through means of a Kinetoscope. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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