Kitty Mahone | 1900 | Short, Music

Title: Kitty Mahone | 1900 | Short, Music Director: Walter Gibbons Studio: Anglo-American Bio-Tableaux Starring: Lil Hawthorne Based on: The music hall song “Kitty Mahone” Runtime: 2 Format: Phono-Bio-Tableaux sound-on-disc synchronization; black-and-white Country: United Kingdom Language: English Genres: Short, Music, Performance --- Chapters: 00:00:00 Opening tableau 00:00:25 First verse 00:01:00 Refrain 00:01:35 Finale and bow --- Summary: A filmed performance capturing music hall star Lil Hawthorne singing “Kitty Mahone,” presented with synchronized gramophone playback. The short preserves the stage style and persona-based delivery typical of late-Victorian variety entertainment. Beyond its simple setup, the film illustrates the novelty of early sound synchronization, offering a rare glimpse of how popular songs were staged and experienced in the era before conventional talkies. --- Background: Produced as part of Walter Gibbons’ Phono-Bio-Tableaux in 1900, the film paired a pre-recorded disc with a matching motion picture of the performer. Most titles in the series are lost; Kitty Mahone survives as the earliest known British “sound film,” and as a unique record of the Phono-Bio-Tableaux experiment and of Lil Hawthorne’s music hall act. --- Trivia: Only one Phono-Bio-Tableaux film is known to survive, and it is this title. Lil Hawthorne was American-born and became a noted British music hall performer. The film has been preserved and made accessible by the British Film Institute. At approximately two minutes, it reflects the brevity of early variety-film subjects. --- Public Domain / Rights: Original Studio / Distributor: Anglo-American Bio-Tableaux Copyright Status: Public Domain Renewal: No --- Hashtags: KittyMahone WalterGibbons LilHawthorne PublicDomain SilentFilm EarlySound MusicHall BFI This video was sourced from Internet Archive. Originally uploaded by Walter Gibbons. https://archive.org/details/kitty-mahone-1900-gibbons-bio-tableaux-v-olt-cys-d-9f-m