Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1903

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a 1903 American silent short drama directed by Edwin S. Porter and produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company. The film was adapted from the 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The plot streamlined the actual story to portray the film over the course of 19 minutes.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was one of the earliest “full-length” American movies, although in 1903 this meant about 19 minutes. Porter shot the film at the Edison Company’s studio in New York. Rather than an adaptation of the novel, the movie’s actors, sets, costumes and much of its staging derive from one of the turn-of-the-century theatrical Tom Shows which were very popular at the time. Each of the fourteen scenes is based on a theatre-like stage with its own set, with the exception of scenes 7 and 8 which use the same set, and scene 5 where models are filmed. This was the first American film to include intertitles to identify and introduce each scene.