Action!: How Movies Began

This history of film begins with Eadweard Muybridge’s 1878 still photographs of a galloping horse, an early attempt to show movement through photography. It continues through Thomas Edison’s Kinetograph and Kinetoscope, the Lumière brothers’ camera and projector, and later additions of color and sound. Early performers Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Josephine Baker appear alongside familiar contemporary actors and films. The book also visits horror, science-fiction, and action movies. An author’s note adds material on the MGM lion, women film editors, and the emergence of Hollywood, while linking the work of performers and behind-the-scenes creators across film history.