Thomas Edi­son is undoubt­ed­ly America’s best-known inven­tor. Nick­named “The Wiz­ard of Men­lo Park” for his pro­lif­ic cre­ativ­i­ty, Edi­son amassed a whop­ping 1093 patents through­out his life­time. His most impor­tant inven­tions, such as the incan­des­cent light bulb and the phono­graph, were not mere­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary in and of them­selves: they led direct­ly to the estab­lish­ment of vast indus­tries, such as pow­er util­i­ties and the music busi­ness. It is one of his less­er known inven­tions, how­ev­er, that led to the pro­duc­tion of the first film shot in the Unit­ed States, which you can view above.

The film, called Mon­keyshines, No. 1, was record­ed at some point between June 1889 and Novem­ber 1890. Its cre­ation is the work of William Dick­son, an employ­ee of Edison’s, who had been in charge of devel­op­ing the inventor’s idea for a new film-view­ing device. The machine that Edi­son had con­ceived and Dick­son engi­neered was the Kine­to­scope: a large box that housed a sys­tem that quick­ly moved a strip of film over a light source. Users watched the film whiz by from a hole in the top of the box, and by using sequen­tial images, like those in a flip-book, the Kine­to­scope gave the impres­sion of move­ment.

In the film, which Dick­son and anoth­er Edi­son employ­ee named William Heise cre­at­ed, a blur­ry out­line of an Edi­son labs employ­ee moves about, seem­ing­ly danc­ing. The above clip con­tains both Mon­keyshines, No. 1, and its sequel, appar­ent­ly filmed to con­duct fur­ther equip­ment tests, known as Mon­keyshines, No. 2. HD video, this is not. Despite hav­ing the hon­or of being the first films to be shot in the US, the Mon­keyshines series has gar­nered an unen­thu­si­as­tic reac­tion from present-day crit­ics: the orig­i­nal received a rat­ing of 5.5/10 stars at IMDB. The sequel? A 5.4.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thomas Edi­son and Niko­la Tes­la Face Off in “Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­to­ry”

Magi­cian Mar­co Tem­pest Daz­zles a TED Audi­ence with “The Elec­tric Rise and Fall of Niko­la Tes­la”

A Brief, Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Thomas Edi­son (and Niko­la Tes­la)

Thomas Edi­son Recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in Ear­ly Voice Record­ing

James Cameron’s Titan­ic appeared in 1997 as the most expen­sive film ever made. Wern­er Klin­gler and Her­bert Selpin’s Titan­ic appeared in 1943 as the most expen­sive Ger­man film ever made. And the two share even more than their bud­gets’ record-break­ing sta­tus, their famous­ly “unsink­able” sub­ject, and their title in com­mon: both endured trou­bled pro­duc­tions, both fea­ture a late scene where their male hero con­vinces his lover to just get on a lifeboat already, and both set out to make strong state­ments indeed. The lat­er, Amer­i­can Titan­ic has much to say about the cin­e­mat­ic tri­umph of late-20th-cen­tu­ry visu­al effects, where­as the ear­li­er, Ger­man Titan­ic takes a more neg­a­tive tack, mount­ing an indict­ment of the sup­pos­ed­ly sav­age avarice and thor­ough cor­rup­tion of that coun­try’s bit­ter wartime ene­my, Great Britain. In its ill-fat­ed tit­u­lar ship, the huge-scale pro­pa­gan­da film found what must have seemed like the per­fect­ly opu­lent illus­tra­tion of its argu­ment.

But things worked out no bet­ter for this Titan­ic than for the actu­al Titan­ic — and indeed, for Ger­many in the Sec­ond World War. “Nev­er shown in Nazi Ger­many, its direc­tor was found hanged  by his own braces and is sus­pect­ed of hav­ing been mur­dered by the Gestapo,” writes David Ger­rie in the Dai­ly Mail. “And the ship that took the role of the Titan­ic, the Cap Arcona, was lat­er sunk with 5,000 con­cen­tra­tion camp pris­on­ers on board, a vast­ly greater loss of life than the 1,517 who died in the Titan­ic dis­as­ter.” For all the time, ener­gy, and mon­ey the regime piled into it, the film turned out “far from the mas­ter­piece [Nazi Min­is­ter of Pro­pa­gan­da Joseph] Goebbels had wait­ed two years to see. Fear­ing Nazi cit­i­zens under attack by Allied bombers would be fright­ened by the sink­ing, he banned its release in Ger­many.” Just as Cameron’s Titan­ic shocked the indus­try-watch­ers who had solemn­ly pre­dict­ed a megaflop by cre­at­ing one of the most suc­cess­ful movies of all time, Klin­gler and Selpin’s Titan­ic must have giv­en the Nazis quite a start when it emerged as a tes­ta­ment not to Britain’s hubris, but, inad­ver­tent­ly, to their own.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Lam­beth Walk—Nazi Style: The Ear­ly Pro­pa­gan­da Mash Up That Enraged Joseph Goebbels

The Nazi’s Philis­tine Grudge Against Abstract Art and The “Degen­er­ate Art Exhi­bi­tion” of 1937

Don­ald Duck’s Bad Nazi Dream and Four Oth­er Dis­ney Pro­pa­gan­da Car­toons from World War II

“The Duck­ta­tors”: Loony Tunes Turns Ani­ma­tion into Wartime Pro­pa­gan­da (1942)

The Nazis’ 10 Con­trol-Freak Rules for Jazz Per­form­ers: A Strange List from World War II

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.