{"id":338,"date":"2008-03-19T19:05:44","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T09:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/19\/vintage-robots-part-six-who-came-first\/"},"modified":"2008-03-19T19:51:34","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T09:51:34","slug":"vintage-robots-part-six-who-came-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/19\/vintage-robots-part-six-who-came-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Vintage Robots, Part Six: What Came First?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an article on BoingBoing<\/a> about the DVD release of some of Houdini’s films, and in particular his serial made in 1918, The Master Mystery<\/em>, which includes a robot [see my blog post here<\/a>], it is claimed that this was “THE FIRST EVER ROBOT IN A MOTION PICTURE” [emphasis in original]. This made me wonder, given the 19th Century’s fascination with automatons of all kinds — from mechanical chessmasters to defecating ducks to robotic fluteplayers.<\/p>\n

Here, for example, is Vichy’s Automaton Harpist from 1880:<\/p>\n

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So I decided to check. A brief non-exhaustive glance through Phil Hardy’s Science Fiction: The Aurum Film Encyclopedia<\/em> revealed the following:<\/p>\n

Gugusse et l’ Automate<\/strong> [aka The Clown and the Automaton] (France-1897; Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s) — length: 1 minute, film reported lost.<\/p>\n

Copp\u00e9lia ou la Poup\u00e9e Anim\u00e9e<\/strong> [aka Coppelia the Animated Doll] (France-1900; dir. Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s) — length: 2 minutes, film reported lost. A version of Copp\u00e9lia<\/em>, a ballet by D\u00e9libes, in which a dollmaker animates a life-size dancing girl. Copp\u00e9lia<\/em> was inspired by one of the tales of Hoffman.<\/p>\n

The Dollmaker’s Daughter<\/strong> (UK-1906; dir. Lewin Fitzhamon) — length: 10 minutes. Another version of Copp\u00e9lia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Mechanical Statue and the Ingenious Servant<\/strong> (US-1907; dir. J. Stuart Blackton) — 7 minutes. Hardy writes:<\/p>\n

“The first use of the automaton, mechanical man, or robot in American cinema comes, not surprisingly, from the creative director\/producer Blackton. Equally unsurprisingly, the development follows the formula of Copp\u00e9lia<\/em>, filmed so many times by European producers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An Animated Doll<\/strong> (US-1908; dir. George Spoor, G.M. Anderson) — 12 minutes. Another Copp\u00e9lia<\/em> inspired film.<\/p>\n

The Rubber Man<\/strong> (US-1909; dir. Sigmund Lubin) — 4 minutes. Says Hardy:<\/p>\n

“The first American film to devise a form of automaton or robot that owes more to pure Science Fiction than the European legends of mechanical dancing dolls. Here, an inventor fashions a humanoid out of rubber, powered by electricity.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this one, the Rubber Man goes on a rampage, which has to be a first in itself.<\/p>\n

Dr Smith’s Automaton<\/strong> (France-1910; dir. unknown) — 7 minutes. Film unavailable. One contemporary critic describes the automaton as “a man of buckram and hidden springs”. Also a robot run amuck story.<\/p>\n

The Automatic Motorist<\/strong> (UK-1911; dir. Walter R. Booth) –10 minutes. Features a clockwork-chauffeur, who drives newly-wed’s car so fast it shoots into space, lands on the moon, veers off to Saturn’s rings, crashes through the planet’s surface — much the annoyance of the inhabitants, and is sent back by a benevolent entity. The robot drives on, taking the newly weds to the bottom of the sea, but the car is shot skyward by a volcanic eruption, whereupon the newly-weds parachute to safety while the robo-chauffeur continues on implacably.<\/p>\n

The Inventor’s Secret<\/strong> (US-1911; dir. D.W. Griffith) — 8 minutes. Copp\u00e9lia<\/em> again, with its toymaker and life-like girl doll.<\/p>\n

The Electric Leg<\/strong> (UK-1912; dir. Percy Snow) — 8 minutes. The bionic man!<\/p>\n

Sammy’s Automaton<\/strong> (France-1914; dir. unknown) — 6 minutes. A critic wrote “The device by which the dummy is brought to life is most cleverly worked”. It’s another robot on a rampage.<\/p>\n

Hoffmans Erzaehlungen<\/strong> [aka Tales of Hoffman] (Germany-1915; dir. Richard Oswald). Contains Hoffman’s story of Olympia, the mechanical doll, which (as Hardy puts it) “becomes the erotic obsession of the hero”.<\/p>\n

Homunculus<\/strong> (Germany-1916; dir. Otto Rippert) — a six chapter serial. A ‘perfect’ creature is made in a laboratory, but:<\/p>\n

“Having discovered his origins, that he has no ‘soul’ and is incapable of love, he revenges himself on mankind, instigating revolutions and becoiming a monstrous but beautiful tyrant, relentlessly pursued by his creator-father who seeks to rectify his mistake.” (Hardy)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a lot of robots (or to be more precise, automatons) that predate Q, the robot from The Master Mystery<\/em> (which turns out to be a fake anyway).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an article on BoingBoing about the DVD release of some of Houdini’s films, and in particular his serial made in 1918, The Master Mystery, which includes a robot [see my blog post here], it is claimed that this was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,25,61],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}