The Unwritten Law (1907 film)

The Unwritten Law: A Thrilling Drama Based on the Thaw-White Tragedy
Produced by	Siegmund Lubin
Production; company	Lubin Manufacturing Company
Release date	1907
Running time	12 min.
Country	USA

The Unwritten Law: A Thrilling Drama Based on the Thaw-White Case is a 1907 film produced by the Lubin Manufacturing Company, based on the true crime story of Harry Kendall Thaw's murder of Stanford White over his involvement with model and actress Evelyn Nesbit. Produced and released concurrently with Thaw's trial, its depiction of a recent sexual scandal led to widespread controversy, becoming "the first film in the United States to be widely construed as 'scandalous.'"[1]

Plot

The plot closely follows Nesbit's own testimony regarding White's seduction and assault, followed by a scene of the murder and Thaw's imprisonment in New York prison The Tombs. Finally, the film shows Thaw's acquittal, though in reality, he had not yet been acquitted at the time of the film's release.

Reception

The film was denounced in the motion picture press and banned in several cities.

In his book Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early-Twentieth Century America, film scholar Lee Grieveson situates the film within the broader discourse on sexuality, morality, and cinema in the United States.

References

Grieveson, Lee (2004). Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early Twentieth-Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 38. ISBN 0-520-23965-2.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] Grieveson, Lee (2004). Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early Twentieth-Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 38. ISBN 0-520-23965-2.