The Missing Reel: The Untold Story of the Lost Inventor of Moving Pictures

In September 1890, on his way to Washington, DC, to file a patent on the first moving picture camera and projector, French inventor Augustin Le Prince vanished. No trace of him has ever been found. Shortly after Le Prince's disappearance, Thomas Alva Edison was granted the patent for the same instruments that would revolutionize the motion picture industry. This is an account of Rawlence's quest to discover what happened to Le Prince and why. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

French inventor Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince vanished while on a train journey from Dijon to Paris in 1890; before his disappearance--he was then presumed dead--he had been on the brink of going public with his one-lens camera and projector. British filmmaker Rawlence here cites evidence left by his widow in her memoirs that Thomas Edison was linked to Le Prince's death. This absorbing, technically and legally overloaded whodunit jumps back and forth between past and present, including suspenseful accounts of the author's research and interviews with Le Prince's descendants on several continents. Rawlence discusses the cut-throat politics of the infant film industry and shady U.S. Patent Office dealings, along with what he considers Edison's dubious business practices. No smoking gun is decisively uncovered, however, and readers are left to draw their own conclusions about Le Prince's fate. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Industrial piracy has been around for as long as there have been people with good, patentable ideas and others unscrupulous enough to steal them. This book deals with one such plausible case involving no less a famous personality in the history of American technology than Thomas Edison, who ultimately received the patent for inventing the motion picture. Curiously enough, Edison himself is quoted in the book as having said that "everyone steals in industry and commerce . . . I have stolen a lot myself." Admittedly, there are a number of versions as to who really invented the motion picture. This fast-paced investigative report examines the travails of Augustin Le Prince who was also working on developing cinematography and who died under mysterious circumstances prior to Edison's patent. Of interest to film buffs, this book is recommended for undergraduate and public libraries.
- Sarojini Balachandran, Auburn Univ. Lib., Ala.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.