One of many films produced by Thomas Edison throughout the 1890s and early 1900s, 'The Execution of Mary Stuart,' sometimes referred to as 'Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,' is reportedly the first film in history to implement trained actors. The film, running less than a minute, is comprised of two stationary shots (passed off as one for the purposes of the visual trickery), and shows an understandably somber Mary being led to the chopping block, where an axe-wielding executioner waits expectantly. Courageously, Mary obediently follows instructions to kneel down, and she lays her neck across the chopping block. With one solid hack, Mary's head comes clean off, her body slumps to the ground and the executioner ominously holds her severed head towards the camera.
Never mind the glaring historical inaccuracies (it is generally agreed upon by historians that, on February 8 1587, it took three blows before Mary's head was hacked off); this is a genuinely chilling little film, and I can only imagine how unsettling audiences of its day must have found it. Even though we can clearly see the cut where the actor (Robert Thomae) was substituted with a dummy, the moment when the axe appears to slice clean through Mary's neck certainly gave me a start.
Never mind the glaring historical inaccuracies (it is generally agreed upon by historians that, on February 8 1587, it took three blows before Mary's head was hacked off); this is a genuinely chilling little film, and I can only imagine how unsettling audiences of its day must have found it. Even though we can clearly see the cut where the actor (Robert Thomae) was substituted with a dummy, the moment when the axe appears to slice clean through Mary's neck certainly gave me a start.