What was the first movie to start putting credits after the feature?!
Question: im curious
Answers: im curious
Universal was famous for having end credits way back when, stating at the top that "A good cast is worth repeating".
No, actors did not get credited for a very long time because the studios feared they would demand bigger salaries. The first to be credited was Florence Lawrence!
Wikipedia has this to say:
The use of closing credits in film to list complete production crew and cast was not firmly established in American film until the 1970s. Before this decade, closing credits usually consisted only of a list of the major cast members, and in many cases, particularly in silent films, movies were released with no closing credits at all. For instance, David Lean's version of Oliver Twist (1948) lists all who had a speaking part in the film -but not the extras- plus all of the major credits at the beginning. The final credits list only the cast of characters. Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist (2005), on the other hand, lists everyone, cast as well as crew, who worked on the picture, and boasts quite a long list of closing credits.
Wikipedia also offers this about "Frankenstein" (1931):
In the opening credits, Karloff is unbilled, with only a question mark being used in place of his name. This is a nod to the first stage adaptation when the monster was billed only as a questionmark, and that Universal had not told who was playing the monster, and had not released any pictures of the monster in order to conceal his appearance. ... Karloff's name is revealed in the closing credits, which otherwise duplicate the credits from the opening under the principle that "A Good Cast Is Worth Repeating".
I'm certain that the answer is out there somewhere. But, I have the feeling that, for every response to this question, someone else might find another film that predates the cited use.
Complete credits with EVERYTHING are relatively recent actually. They've also begun listing all of the stuntpeople, which is fascinating reading. Everyone knows stuntman/actor Jophery Brown, for instance. Remember the worker who gets chomped by the unseen raptor at the beginning of "Jurassic Park"? Yep! That's Mr. Brown, who has had roles and done stuntwork in other films. Some stuntpeople graduate to full-time acting; the perk is that they can do their own stunts!
Here's the story of Florence Lawrence, truly the first film star because people learned her name in rather an amusing way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_La...
Won't it be fun to haul out this bit of trivia?
EDIT: Now, I'm curious as to whether we can thank George Lucas for comprehensive credit crawls. I seem to remember sitting through the credits of technicians at the end of "Star Wars IV"; is this memory incorrect? After all, that's a long time ago in a theater far, far away~well, about 50 miles at least.
Probably the first movie ever made. =)
(I have no idea what that was.)
Oh wow, this is a good question!!! I wish I knew, I do know it was probably sometime in the late 70's--the wikipedia article didn't list it. Hopefully some movie buff here knows!
Depends on what you mean by credits....
Older movies (1940s and earlier) often only ran the characters, actors and acknowlegements at the begining of the picture, but may have put the studio or "thanks" at the end of the movie.
It wasnt until the mid 70s that all the songs, production assistants, key grips and others were added to the ending credits
I don't know the very first movie to list all the credits.
George Lucas was sued by the American film industry for putting his credits after the movie, Star Wars (or as it is now known Star Wars episode 4 A New Hope). I believe it was the first time but I may be wrong.
I am not sure which but I am pretty sure that it was an Alfred Hitchcock movie. He liked to build suspense so holding the credits to the end made sense to make you wonder who that was that did that.