Distributing a War Extra (1899)

"This scene shows a crowd of newsboys running to meet the 'World' newspaper delivery wagon, and falling back to the point of distribution. There is a mad scramble for papers, and fight between two of the gamins."

Storyline

New York City street scene of newsboys receiving their daily allotment of newspapers (the New York World). Includes a fisticuffs scuffle between two of the boys.

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Plot Keywords:

new york | newspaper | children

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Genres:

Short | Documentary

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

May 1899 (USA)

Also Known As:

Delivering Newspapers

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

American Mutoscope & Biograph

Technical Specs

Runtime:

1 min 1 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.36 : 1

User Reviews

The Fight for Circulation

This is one of the long series of films that the American Mutoscope & Biograph company shot in this period that shows industrial action in this period -- Billy Bitzer, who co-shot this with Arthur Marvin later shot a famous series around the Westnghouse factory in Pennsylvania, and there are more than a dozen of those pieces, meant for viewing on the movie screen and hand-cranked flip card viewer of the Post Office at work. Bitzer and Mrvin would later attain screen immortality for their work with D.W. Griffith, although by 1910 Marvin would work with other directors at Biograph.

Shot in one, simple long take, this shows a bunch of news boys scrambling for copies of a newspaper for sales. Carefully staged to show the action and chaos, it is mostly interesting to show how things have changed in more than a century. Nowadays, we just hit a few buttons on the computer