Page 5 of The Mystery of the Moving Image
“Yeah, first copyrighted film in the United States,” I murmured. Fred Ott had been a gentleman who worked for Edison, who by all accounts had a particularly memorable sneeze. It was one of the test reels shot by W. K. L. Dickson, Edison’s assistant, who was the brilliant inventor of the Kinetograph camera and Scope viewer. “But even that film didn’t survive,” I continued. “It was submitted to the Library of Congress as a series of still images, later reanimated into a movie.”
“Howdo you know this?”
“I took notes in college.” I carefully removed the canister lid.
“You’re the guy at the cocktail party everyone regrets striking up a conversation with.”
“Yeah, probably.” I set the lid aside and stared at the spool of film. It looked… okay. Better than okay. Intact.Playable, even. “This is incredible. Look here—it has the perforations along the side of the frames.”
Max leaned close, reached out, and hovered his finger above the strip of film I held. “So, what, those holes feed in the Kinetoscope, right?”
“Right. Edison patented that concept as well, but it was Dickson who came up with the idea to slice 70mm film in half and make perforations. Afterward, the company was able to submit custom orders for film stock with these exact specifications for their machines.”
“Hundred-twenty-year-old movie,” Max said with an astonished tone. “It’s going to be either porn or cats.”
I laughed and took the film canister with me to the Kinetoscope. I stooped, opened the cabinet, and studied the mechanical setup.
“Are you going to try to play the film?”
“Sure.” I looked back at Max. “You want to see what it is, right?”
“Duh.”
We sat in front of the Kinetoscope, studying old patent schematics I brought up on my phone, and tried to duplicate the arrangement with our mystery film stock. After about twenty minutes of “Be careful,” “No, the other way,” “The other,otherway,” and the classic, “Oh shit,” we got it fed through the long system of spools.
Max was tearing through the crate’s packaging once again.
“What’re you doing?” I called, carefully shutting the cabinet.
“Looking for a note.”
“Is there one?”
“No.” More shuffling followed, and then Max peered down over the top of the cabinet at me. “This has to be from someone you know, don’t you think?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Trusting you with such a rare artifact.”
“I do love a good ego stroke,” I muttered before getting to my feet.
“Not to mention that shipping a crate is expensive, even if it’s just from one end of the city to the other,” Max concluded. The shop phone rang and he left my side to answer it.
“I’ll call the shipping company today,” I said, mostly to myself once Max started talking on the phone. “See if they can provide me with the client’s contact information….”
“Boss,” Max said. He wove in between displays, reaching the phone out. “It’s Pete-Ain’t-Never-Gonna-Show from the fair.”
My shoulders dropped a bit. I took the phone. “Pete?”
“Hey! Snow! I got your message about the pickup.”
I pursed my lips. “I left that message on Sunday. It’s Tuesday.”
“Well, yeah, but you weren’t open yesterday.”
“You were supposed to be here on Saturday, Pete. I’ve had my stock for the fair boxed and waiting since last Friday.”
“Look, I’m sorry about missing the pickup window, but it’s been a busy week of prepping for the event. We welcome our sponsors to drop items off at the Javits Center themselves.”
