Electrocuting an Elephant

Electrocuting an Elephant (1903)

Film depicting the killing of Topsy, an elephant employed to help build Luna Park on Coney Island.

Date of release
1903-01-12
TMDB
2.7 / 10 (97)
Runtime
1m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Edwin S. Porter

Casting

Interesting facts

Electrocuting an Elephant is a 1903 American black-and-white silent actuality short depicting the killing of the elephant Topsy by electrocution at a Coney Island amusement park on January 4, 1903. It was produced by the Edison film company and is believed to have been shot by either Edwin S. Porter or Jacob Blair Smith.

Background

This film documents the publicly announced killing of Topsy the elephant at the unfinished Luna Park on Coney Island, New York City on January 4, 1903. The elephant had recently been acquired from Forepaugh Circus, where she had a reputation as a "bad" elephant, having killed a drunken spectator the previous year who burnt the tip of her trunk with a lit cigar.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended