January 10, 2015

Mary, Queen Of Scots and the First Snuff Film?

Mary, Queen Of Scots (aka Mary Stuart) was six days old when her father, King James V of Scotland, died and she became the Scottish queen, but the real controversy surrounding this royal occurred when the very Catholic Queen Mary I of England died and was succeeded by her half-sister, the very Protestant Elizabeth I - both fathered by King Henry VIII. In the eyes of many Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate, and Mary Stuart, as the senior descendant of Henry VIII's elder sister, was the rightful queen of England. Katherine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave both played her on film but Mary Stuart's first cinematic appearance was in 1895 when the Edison Laboratory created a short film depicting her execution; the jump cut right before the beheading was so convincing to audiences of the time that many (would have) believed it to be the first snuff film - had that term been in the lexicon of the 19th century.


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