The Tempest (1908)

Directed by

Percy Stow

Genre

fantasy film, silent film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

12 min

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 10 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This silent film adapts William Shakespeare's play about a magician who conjures a storm to strand his enemies on an island. It uses early trick photography to show magical events like spirits and a shipwreck.

old-fashionedwhimsicalsilentplayfulshorttheatricalfantasticalsimple

What happens

The Tempest is a 1908 British-made silent film directed by film pioneer Percy Stow who specialised in trick photography. The 'delightful' film was made by the Clarendon Film Company founded by Stow and Henry Vassal Lawley. It was written by Langford Reed and was the second screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the first being when Charles Urban filmed the opening storm sequence of Herbert Beerbohm Tree's stage version at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1905 for a 2+1⁄2-minute flicker. Stow's film can be said to be the first cinematic version designed specifically for film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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