First Film of Blackpool

Blackpool Tower is hard to miss in this local version of a 'phantom ride'

If the prominent sight of Blackpool Tower makes the task of identifying where this film was made easy, the question of when is a little trickier. The clue lies not in the the tower - which was opened to the public in May 1894. Instead, we have to look at another icon of Blackpool: its tramway. This was converted in 1899 to run from overhead wiring. There are no wires in this film, so it can be dated prior to 1899. Plus, the filmmakers could count themselves lucky that the tram was working at all, since the reason for the conversion was constant short-circuiting in rough weather.