Really Surprised!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This short film is not at all convincing by today's standards. It is only 15 seconds long and...yeah, I think you know what to expect. Edison's filmmaking business was still in its infancy when they made this, although it is a step up from what they were originally doing. Instead of an athlete or dancer performing for the camera, here's a historical reenactment on film with actors, costumes and props. Wow.What puzzles me about this film though is that it contains, supposedly, the VERY FIRST EDIT EVER IN FILM HISTORY (but believe me, the edit itself is very easy to spot which takes away the horror element. It's obvious they substituted the actress with a dummy). Way to go, Edison. But isn't there a rumor out there that it was Georges Méliès who invented the film edit? For a while I had the impression that it WAS him (due to a myth about the camera getting crammed while the director was filming a street scene) until I saw this finally. Like I said, the edit is very poor, and Melies would do editing seamlessly in the following years, but it is nonetheless important.And so,"The Execution of Mary Stuart" thus marks not one, but three new things: the first edit, the first film reenactment, and the first horror movie ever filmed! A must-see despite the depressing and horrid nature of the film.

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.

all right, the execution of mary, queen of scots is certainly not the prettiest of the edison labs. films. i'm not keen on executions nor bad camera tricks and this one delivers. still, it's the first of it's kind for both, and is therefore essential viewing for anyone seriously interested in film.now, let's get realistic for a second here. the camera trick used here is one of the first, if not the first of it's kind. apparently it shocked the audience it had in it's days, but for obvious reasons it today looks quite fake. this is also one of the first if not the first film reproducing a historical scene going for the best possible realism, a description that later became a definition for a genre. the execution wasn't very realistic historically either, though.according to IMDb it's also the first film with trained actors. it doesn't show much ;) but it's yet another merit for this film only mildly interesting in traditional sense. like it or not, the execution of mary stuart ranks high in film history. the influence it has given to countless films after it cannot be dismissed.

*Possible spoilers ahead!* This is historically inaccurate and very dull. I mean, lets face it: who wants to see an execution? In this video (spoilers!) it took one chop to cut her head off; in real life it was three. Don't watch this if you don't want to watch a silent, black and white video.