When Oscar Was Just Another Name: Hollywood's History Starts With 50 Seconds of Horseplay

“Monkeyshines” is very likely the first film shot in the United States. Movie pioneers William Heise and William K. L. Dickson made it for Edison Labs in 1889 or 1890.

The pair worked with Thomas Edison to develop and test the Kinetoscope, an early motion picture viewing device considered to be the precursor to movie projectors. The film, all 56 seconds of it, shows a lab worker “horsing around” in front of the camera.