El Fusilamiento de Rizal
Screening
- Venue: Zorilla Theater
News
- Description: There were not one but two first movies about Dr. Rizal, filmed at the same time, rushed for the earlier opening date and attended by flack in the press. One movie was a pastoral idyll [Life of Dr. Jose Rizal]. The other was on the hero's last hours with the sensational title of El Fusilamiento de Rizal. The movies opened one day before each other. Publication: Mercado, Doña Sisang
Reviews
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Description: Exhibited simultaneously with another picture on Dr. Rizal's Life… [Life of Dr. Jose Rizal]"" Mr. Gross produced 3 more pictures--'Noli Me Tangere’, 'Medicong Laway,' and 'Nena La Bozcadora. His wife acted the leading parts. Believing that he had used the best stories worth filming and perhaps for some other reasons, he sold his equipment and quit.
The pictures of Yearsley and Gross were the works of beginners. The interior sets used stage curtains which moved as the wind blew. The artists did not have make-up and their faces looked black on the screen. And they quit too soon to give life to the seed they had planted; but they opened the eyes of the Filipinos to the new art and industry, and that credit should be given to them. Publication: Salumbides, Motion Pictures in the Philippines, Part I -
Description: [The film was] provided with Spanish subtitles since Spanish was the dominant language of Filipinos at the time, [and it] drew crowds from Manila and the provinces.
The Gross film attracted the bigger audience groups because of the star of the picture: Titay Molina, well-known Filipino stage actress who played the role of Josephine Bracken... Titay was, in real life, Gross's wife. She was also the relative of the noted composer and heritage award winner for music, Professor Antonio Molina.
But…[Gross] and Yearsley had already established the foundation of the film industry in the Philippines. Their productions were crude by latter-day standard they did not use make-up on their players, they had not yet discovered how to reflect sunlight onto their subjects, and their sets were mere drapes that trembled with the wind. But they were pioneers in the full sense of the word. Publication: Quirino, Jose Nepomuceno: Philippine Movies - Description: N.B.: While Salumbides and Mercado make no mention of the date of production or exhibition, Agcaoili gives 1908 as the date when Filipino movies began. Publication: Agcaoili, "Movies”
Trivia
- Zorilla Theater (corner Azcarraga Street, now C.M. Recto and Evangelista Street)
- L.M. Gross, operator of Zorilla Theater
- Titay Molina (Mrs. E.M. Gross)