21. Illustrated and Photographic Slides
Illustrated Lantern Slides Create Screen Drama
Despite the craze for photographic shows, most of Prof. D. B Nettz’s c1900 show depended on illustrated lantern slides by Beale. He included three Beale sets—Life of Grant, Ten Nights in a Bar Room, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (Click here see a UTC magic-lantern show.)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the famous anti-slavery polemic, and Ten Nights, at the time an equally famous anti-drinking story, were two of Beale’s earliest and most popular sets.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is notable because it follows two stories simultaneously, that of the soft-spoken Uncle Tom, and that of the fiery George Harris and his wife Eva, who escaped from slave hunters by running across the ice floes of the Ohio River. Thus Beale’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an early example of the cross-cutting that would become such a staple of the movies.
Archival Notes
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