New Pillow Fight

Four young girls hit each other with pillows until the feathers fly.

Edison film, you say. Released May 24, 1897. No, wait, someone else says. It's American Mutoscope & Biograph, released May 24, 1897. It's a very erudite crowd, up on the minutiae, and maybe you'll argue some about whose idea it was and who stole what from whom and so forth.

Well, this one is from Lubin, who had a habit of looking at what his competitors did. And because there was no copyright back then and he had the best equipment in the business -- he had started out as an optician, moved into optical manufacturing and so forth -- he had a habit of buying a competitor's movie and then reprinting it for his own catalogue. Or sometimes he restaged it.

Release date? May 1897. So who came up with it first?