The X-Rays 1897 is one of the earliest British spooky films in existence
TITLE: The X Rays
YEAR RELEASED: 1897
DIRECTOR: George Albert Smith
CAST: Tom Green and Laura Bayley
The X Rays 1897 Review
The X-Rays is a British short silent comedy film, which was directed by George Albert Smith in 1897. (It was released in October 1897.)
The film, which runs for under a minute, shows a courting couple, Tom Green and Laura Bayley, filmed in X Ray by a man with a camera labeled “X Rays”.
The film is one of the first British examples of a film using special effects using jump-cuts. The film jumps between the Victorian couple in their finest to their spooky skeleton selves, which looks very funny and kinda cool.
The short was filmed only two years after the discovery of X-rays by German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen in 1895.
While X-Rays is not particularly spooky, it is quite strange and involves skeletons – which is more than usual fare for Spooky Isles. Give it a look, you won’t be scared but you’ll have a laugh!
Tell us what you think of The X-Rays 1897 in the comments section below!
Funny movie indeed, skelton clothes, ftw.
(Except that a similar technique to X-Rays was invented by Nikola Tesla a few years prior to the “Röntgen-Strahlen.”) 🙂