Author:  [log in to unmask]
Date:    12/19/94 11:53 AM
 
[Editor's note:  This message was submitted to SCREEN-L by the "Author" noted
above, and not by Jeremy Butler ([log in to unmask]).]
 
In response to the question about "The Woman in the Moon" (1929) by Fritz
Lang, I need hardly remind people here of the level of scholarship
demonstrated by most cable networks (including AMC), Surely even they could
not have suggested that a 1929 film was the first film made. They probably
said that it was the first science-fiction film made.
However, that is not the case either, even if they meant "feature-length"
films. In America, the Williamson Brothers in the teens made several films
based on the underwater sagas of Jules Verne. And the Soviet Union (of all
places) made "Aelita, Queen of Mars" in 1924, four years prior to Lang's
"Moon" film and two years prior to "Metropolis". The Russian film (and the
novel on which it was based) was so popular that a whole generation of Soviet
women took the name, Aelita.
 
Gene Stavis, School of Visual Arts - NYC