The Land Beyond the Sunset

1912 FantasyDrama 14 minutes Directed by Harold M. Shaw

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About The Land Beyond the Sunset

Joe, a New York newsboy, lives with a grandmother who beats him. While selling papers he is handed a Fresh Air Fund ticket and slips out of the tenement. The outing takes him to the country and the shore for the first time. After the picnic a volunteer reads a story about a prince who escapes an old witch and sails to a land beyond the sunset. The others go back to the city. Joe keeps the book, hides, walks to the beach, and climbs into a rowboat with no oars. He holds the book as the boat drifts out.

Cast & crew

More about The Land Beyond the Sunset

Harold M. Shaw directed. Dorothy G. Shore wrote it. Edison made it with the Fresh Air Fund. Thomas A. Edison, Inc. released it on October 28, 1912. The original was one reel, 1,000 feet, 14 to 15 minutes.

Themes

  • A newsboy and a Fresh Air ticket
  • A story read after the picnic
  • A boat with no oars
  • Joe
  • Fresh Air Fund
  • newsboy
  • Long Island Sound
  • rowboat
  • Edison

Background

The Fresh Air Fund was sending poor New York children out of the tenements on day trips. The film uses one of those tickets as the way Joe leaves the city.

Making

The Fresh Air Fund, which took city children on country trips, worked with Edison on the story.

Look

The shore scenes were shot in a Bronx park with Long Island Sound behind the beach.

Preservation

In 2000 the Library of Congress placed it on the National Film Registry. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • Martin Fuller plays Joe. Mrs. William Bechtel plays the grandmother. Walter Edwin plays the manager of the Fresh Air Fund. Bigelow Cooper plays the minister.
  • Committee women in the cast are Ethel Jewett, Elizabeth Miller, Gladys Du Pell, and Margery Bonney Erskine.
  • The studio scenes were shot at Edison's plant at Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place in the Bronx.
  • It is on the DVD Treasures from American Film Archives (2000).

Scenes

  • Joe takes the excursion ticket while selling papers.
  • A volunteer reads the story of the prince and the land beyond the sunset.
  • Joe sits in the oarless boat with the book and drifts out.

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (The Land Beyond the Sunset.webm)
  • Treasures from American Film Archives (DVD, 2000)

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