Silent film

These recent additions to the Folger collection relate to a range of early Shakespeare films that represented important firsts, won awards, and witnessed the transition from silent films to “talkies.”

With Herbert Beerbohm Tree as the king, the four-minute silent movie “King John” (1899) is often called “the first Shakespeare film,” as Michael Anderegg explains. Watch the surviving one-minute fragment and learn more about its theatrical star.