The origins of motion picture technologies are described and analyzed by Charles Musser in this lavishly illustrated volume. He considers social and economic as well as aesthetic aspects of the beginnings of movie making.

Charles Musser is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Film Studies at Yale University and author of Before the Nickelodeon (California, 1990).

"Musser's work constitutes a revolution in the study of early American cinema."—Stephen Bottomore, Historical Journal for Film, Radio and Television

"Musser gives a new concreteness to standard arguments about the development of an early cinema of attractions into a cinema of narrative complexity."—Dana Polan, Film Quarterly

"Meticulously illustrated with frame enlargements from the original films, trade advertisements and productions shots. . . . Musser uses these illustrations . . . to pinpoint every development, every lawsuit and policy change within the burgeoning industry. . . . [He] has brought dignity to an era previously regarded as primitive."—Kevin Lewis, Film Culture

"Massively detailed, scrupulously and exhaustively researched, copiously graphed and illustrated, heavily footnoted, examining each period from several critical and sociological perspectives, these three books are perfectly representative, in many ways, of the state of academic film research today."—Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Winner, Theatre Library Association Prize and the Jay Leyda Prize in Cinema Studies