Who produced the first horror film?
The first FILM HORROR was a one-reel production of R.L. Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, released in the spring of 1908 by the Selig Polyscope Co. of Chicago. The title role was played by Richard Mansfield, supported by the other members of the company then touring with Luella Forepaugh and George Fish’s 1897 stage version of the story. The film was faithful to the play, even to opening and closing with a curtain.
The first British horror film was also a version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. made by Lucius Henderson in 1912, with James Cruze and Harry Benham in the lead roles. Of the 50 or so adaptations of the story made up to now (few of them owing much to Stevenson’s original), this was the only one in which Jekyll and Hyde were played by two different actors.
