User Reviews

W. K. L. Dickson's 1896 film serial (the first serial ever, actually) which tells the story of Rip van Winkle may be the very first film ever to tell a story in the history of cinema. (And it still technically counts as one movie because of all eight installments being edited together in 1903 to make a complete film). The reason they did this is very understandable, considering looking at each clip you won't really find much to see and it's only until you put them together as one movie that you get what they were trying to accomplish. "Rip's Toast to Hudson and Crew" is the fifth in the series, following "Rip Leaving Sleepy Hollow" and preceding "Rip's Twenty Year Sleep". It's basically a twenty or so second clip featuring actor Joseph Jefferson as Rip toasting, as the title suggests, the ghosts of Hudson (who I think was a pirate captain) and his crew. What did you expect for twenty seconds? Again, not easy to see what they were attempting just by looking at it by itself and I feel they could have combined this with the last three installments of the series since it's the same setting and leaves off so quickly. I suppose this was because Biograph's cameras were more primitive when compared to the Lumières' Cinematograph, and couldn't hold as much film. This is probably why each segment couldn't be any longer than thirty seconds.