Looking back at 1912 it is hard to believe that Sarah Bernhardt's movie "Queen Elizabeth" much agitated a year so full of exciting events. People talked about the Titanic and the Bull Moose and the Balkan War if they were not reading the latest books of O. Henry, Edith Wharton, and Henry Adams. Just out of the nickleodeon era, the movies in America were far inferior to European productions, and attracted only a million persons a day. In 1912, however, the entertainment became an art under the patronage of the great Bernhardt, an event perhaps more portentious than others with greater space in the newspapers.
The movie runs thirty-five minutes and is unexpectedly clearly printed. Without closeups and the moving camera, the technique of acting is quaintly cramped, all action moving from side to side before the lens. Since they cannot speak, the players use magnificent gestures and grimaces to convey their emotions, and this very burlesque of over-acting is amusing to moderns. The "immortal Sarah" is a disappointment, for although the cinema may not be her medium, she has no right to shatter dreams by being a dumpy, lame, old woman. Anybody who takes the movies seriously will be fascinated by this page from the past.
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