The periodical Motography during
1914 gave the date of the settings of the film "Anne Boleyn (
1912) as 1532 during the reign of Henry VIII, typifying the film as an early example of the costume drama genre, "its exteriors typical of England", the interiors including the Tower. The periodical Motion Picture World reviewed the Eclipse-Kleine of Anne Boleyn using the word photodrama rather photoplay, "Max Pemberton has wrote the scenario, and he has kept close to the historical narrative in the main facts...so strong in vindication of her innocenece and so adverse to the merciless monarch that a view of these films forces the spectator to take the side of the ill-fated Anne with a feeling of bitter animosity toward her royal mate." The specific instance use of the word "spectator" in the historiography of the extatural discourse of the period's fan magazines was refreshingly from 1914.
An earlier version of the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII was filmed the previous year in the United States during 1912 starring actrees
Ckara Kimball Young. Shakespeare's King Henry VIII proclaims that Anne Boleyn will be his queen in the one reel Vitagraph film "Cardinal Wolsey", directed by J.Stuart Blackton.
"Henry VIII" by William Shakespeare was directed by William Barker during 1911 starring the renowned Herbert Beerbohm Tree with acress Violet Vanburgh as Queen Catherine. The film is presumed to be a
Lost Silent Film with no surving copies existing but features the same actress as Anne Boleyn as the 1913 French version.
Ernst Lubitsch directed "Anna Boleyn" during 1920 with actress Henny Porten and actress Aud Egede-Nissen as Jane Seymour. Pictures and Pictures and Picturegoer Magazine related that the narrative of the film centered around the "beautiful and impressive" Henny Porten by disclosing that "the end is foreshadowed in the opening shots". Film historian Arthur Knight explains an interest in transnationalism during the silent era, "There would seem to be three main types of German productions during this period, all more or less concurrent. First and probably most popular were great costume spectacles like "Passion" (1919), "Ann Boleyn" (1920) and "Danton" (1921). At the outset, these dealt with less than savory incidents from the history of Germany's recent enemies, but they did so withgreat flair."
Silent Film
Scott Lord
