The Impossible Convicts
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About The Impossible Convicts
Four convicts in stripes march backward down the stairs and hop backward into their cells. One overpowers a guard who has brought a meal and lets the other three out. More guards arrive. Guards and prisoners jerk forward and backward through the prison, and the escape fails.
Cast & crew
More about The Impossible Convicts
G. W. Bitzer photographed it for Biograph, which copyrighted it on December 19, 1905, as H70260, at 178 feet, and released it on January 27, 1906. Silent Era does not name a director. The backward march is the negative run in reverse.
Themes
Making
Bitzer shot the prison action so that printing it backward would put the convicts into their cells in reverse.
Look
G. W. Bitzer shot the prison stairs and cells, then had stretches of the negative reversed.
Technique
Reverse motion sends the convicts downstairs and into the cells backward, then mixes forward and backward action in the escape.
Preservation
The Library of Congress paper-print collection holds a 35mm paper positive and a 35mm preservation print.
Notes
- Biograph deposited a paper print for copyright.
- The Library of Congress holds that 35mm paper positive and a preservation print made from it.
- The film is public domain in the United States.
- IMDb credits Bitzer as director. The AFI Catalog credits him only as cameraman.
Scenes
- The four hop backward into their cells.
- A meal tray is the moment one prisoner takes a guard.
- Guards and convicts snap forward and back in the same corridor.
