Magic Shadows: The Story of the Origin of Motion Pictures

Transcriber’s Note
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MAGIC SHADOWS
The Story of the Origin of Motion Pictures
by MARTIN QUIGLEY, JR.
QUIGLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY New York, N. Y. 1960
Copyright, 1948–1960, by Martin Quigley, Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in reviews.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-14797
Printed in the United States of America
Ask almost anyone about the origins of the motion picture, and you’ll get a glib and automatic answer. It will include a fast, indefinite reference to Edison and Eastman and will move on, with more-or-less authentic nostalgia, to Mack Sennett, Fatty Arbuckle, D. W. Griffith and maybe a few others. With luck, one or two titles—The Great Train Robbery, for example—may creep in.
The fact is, most of us simply do not know much about it.