Electrocuting an Elephant
About Electrocuting an Elephant
Topsy, an elephant, is led by handler Carl Goliath past a crowd through unfinished Luna Park at Coney Island toward a lagoon. The camera stops. When it starts again she is still on the near side of the bridge, copper sandals on her feet and a noose at her neck. She shakes at one sandal, then stands. Current from the Coney Island station drops her. Smoke comes off her feet, and the noose tightens as the shot ends.
Cast & crew
More about Electrocuting an Elephant
The killing was January 4, 1903. Edison Manufacturing released the film on January 17. Edwin S. Porter or Jacob Blair Smith is believed to have been the cameraman. Luna Park's owners, Frederic Thompson and Elmer Dundy, had planned a public hanging and then limited the event to guests and the press. Strangling with a steam winch was the announced method. Poison and electricity were added. Press agent Charles Murray fed her carrots laced with 460 grams of potassium cyanide. Park electrician Hugh Thomas closed a switch after a signal from the Coney Island station, sending 6,600 volts for about ten seconds. The camera misses the hour and forty-five minutes in which she refused the bridge and the gear was moved.
Themes
Background
Luna Park was still under construction in January 1903. Thompson and Dundy turned an animal they said they could not keep into a press event, and the Edison company sold the record of it.
Making
The operators expected to film her on an island in the boat lagoon. She would not cross. They rewired the sandals and the winch where she stood, which is why the second shot shows the bridge still behind her.
Look
The cameraman, either Edwin S. Porter or Jacob Blair Smith, films from one position as she is led in, cuts, and restarts for the fall. Nothing in the gap is on the negative.
Preservation
A paper print filed for copyright at the Library of Congress preserved the picture. As a 1903 release it is in the public domain in the United States.
Notes
- The negative is about 70 feet.
- A copyright deposit, a paper print, went to the Library of Congress.
- The year before, Topsy had killed a spectator who burned her trunk with a cigar.
- Her handler William "Whitey" Alt was blamed for some of the trouble at the park.
- Thomas Edison was not at Luna Park. The electrocution was a decade after the war of the currents, and he was no longer with General Electric.
- One report said she died without a trumpet or a groan.
Scenes
- Carl Goliath leads Topsy through the unfinished park past spectators.
- She tries to kick off a copper sandal.
- She drops when the current hits, and smoke rises from her feet.
