The Battle of Trafalgar (1911 film) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Battle of Trafalgar |
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Film still of Admiral Nelson (Sydney Booth) presenting his battle plan in London
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| Directed by | J. Searle Dawley |
| Produced by | Thomas A. Edison, Inc. |
| Written by | Edwin M. La Roche |
| Starring | Sydney Booth |
| Cinematography | Henry Cronjager |
| Studio | Edison Studios, The Bronx, New York United States |
| Distributed by | The General Film Company |
| Release date(s) | September 22, 1911 |
| Running time | 1000 feet (approximately 15 minutes) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The Battle of Trafalgar is a lost 1911 American silent docudrama film that portrayed the 1805 victory of Great Britain’s Royal Navy over the combined naval forces of France and Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. The death of British Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson in that decisive sea battle was also depicted in this "one-reeler", which was directed by J. Searle Dawley and produced by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. The film starred Sydney Booth with Herbert Prior, James Gordon, Charles Ogle, and Laura Sawyer in supporting roles.
Plot
This film is described in 1911 trade publications as "a powerful historical drama" of the famous battle off the coast of Spain, at Cape Trafalgar, on October 21, 1805. The motion picture's opening scenes, according to plot descriptions in those publications, portrayed Lord Nelson (Sydney Booth) at the Board of Admiralty in London in the weeks prior to the conflict. There he reveals his "wonderful plan of attack" against the French fleet, which was supported by warships of its Spanish ally. After discussing the daring plan, Nelson and his fellow officers raise their drinking glasses to toast King George III and Britain's anticipated success against French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's naval forces.
The photoplay then shifted to scenes at sea aboard HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship. It is the day before the battle and officers are writing letters, perhaps their final messages, to their families and sweethearts. Lieutenant Prescott (Herbert Prior) is shown writing his fiancée (Laura Sawyer), who appears as a vision with "beautiful scenic and photographic effect". Advancing to the next day, the film depicted Nelson making a final entry in his personal diary and later on Victory bidding farewell to Captain Hardy (James Gordon) and other officers once the long line of enemy vessels is sighted on the horizon. Next, "splendidly portrayed" in the film, signal flags are hoisted aloft to relay the admiral's own simple but inspiring message to his crews across the British fleet: "England expects that every man will do his duty". Scenes then transitioned to the flagship's decks being cleared for action, followed by footage showing the battle itself with "the firing of the guns", "ships caught on fire", and close-up views of the battered Victory. While the battle is raging, Nelson and Hardy are openly and calmly walking on the quarter deck giving commands. Suddenly, Nelson drops to his knees, struck down by a musket ball shot by a sniper aboard the adjacent French warship Redoubtable. Mortally wounded, Lord Nelson is quickly carried below decks to the ship's cockpit. There in the film's final scenes, described as replete with "grandeur" and "pathos", the heroic admiral dies, but not until Hardy brings him news of the British fleet's overwhelming defeat of Napoleon's Franco-Spanish fleet.
Principal cast
- Sydney Booth as Admiral Lord Nelson
- James Gordon as Captain Thomas Hardy
- Herbert Prior as Lieutenant Prescott
- Charles Ogle as William Beatty, ship's surgeon on HMS Victory
- Laura Sawyer as Lieutenant Prescott's "Affianced"
Production
The sets for staging the production, including basic replicas of several deck areas on HMS Victory, were built in New York City at Edison Studios, which was located at the intersection of Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place in the Bronx. The extras who performed as crewmen aboard the British flagship and on the French vessel Redoubtable were various Bronx residents hastily gathered by the studio from surrounding neighborhoods. In 1917, Marc McDermott, an Australian actor and featured Edison player at the time of this production's development, recalled how a mistake in a major scene by one of those inexperienced extras or "supers" forced Director J. Searle Dawley to reassemble the cast and crew days after filming to reshoot an entire combat sequence on the Victory set:
Dawley had been imploring the extras to register animation and finally, after several rehearsals, ordered the scene taken. A few days later the scene was shown in the studio dark room. Then, for the first time, Dawley was horrified to see an anxious super, standing on the quarterdeck, pick up a papier-mache anchor supposed to weigh something like a ton. With one hand the zealous extra hurled it over the side. There was nothing to do but to retake the whole scene. But the anxious extra wasn't in the retake.
"Lost" film status and later British silent productions
No copy of this production is listed in the film collection of the Library of Congress, the UCLA Film Archives, in the collection of moving images at the Museum of Modern Art, the George Eastman Museum, the Library and Archives Canada (LAC), or in other major film repositories in the United States, Canada, or Europe. The film is therefore presumed to be lost. A major fire at Edison's Bronx facilities on March 28, 1914 devastated much of the studio, destroying sets, large collections of costumes, production equipment, and "many moving picture feature films". It is quite possible that any master negatives and prints of The Battle of Trafalgar stored there were among the losses in that fire.
Later footage from other silent productions that include portrayals of the Battle of Trafalgar should not be confused with this 1911 Edison release. Two of those subsequent releases are much longer, far more elaborate British films. One, titled Nelson; The Story of England's Immortal Naval Hero, is a 1918 two-hour biopic starring Donald Calthrop. The other silent film, also a biopic and simply titled Nelson, is a four-reeler released in 1926. It stars Cedric Hardwicke. Both of these British films survive, and each contains scenes of the 1805 battle that in style and general content are likely very similar to some scenes in this Edison version, including rudimentary special effects that employed the use of miniature models and painted silhouettes of warships, small-scale explosions, and tight camera framing to simulate the opposing fleets bombarding one another.
