Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Company's "The Gay Shoe Clerk" demonstrates the influence of British filmmaker George Albert Smith. This film is essentially a remake, or reworking, of Smith's "As Seen Through a Telescope" (1900); it uses the same three-shot plot, including a close-up in the middle, and the joke of a man being punished for looking at a woman's ankle while she lifts her dress. The setting was changed from a man outside using a telescope to view the leg in Smith's film to the inside of shoe store. Porter would've presumably seen Smith's film through the duping practices of the Edison Company, who stole Smith's film and distributed it as "The Professor and His Field Glass". Historian Charles Musser ("Before the Nickelodeon") says that Porter may have also been influenced by a Biograph subject, tellingly titled, "Don't Get Gay with Your Manicure" (1902/03).
More interestingly are the differences between the close-ups in Porter and Smith's films. The one in "As Seen Through a Telescope" is a masked point-of-view (POV) shot. Porter's view is not masked and is not a POV from any character's perspective, but is an ordinary ("invisible") close-up, matching-on-action, which isn't explained within the narrative, as a POV shot is. Standard film-making nowadays, but not in 1903. Yet, not even this use of the close-up was Porter's invention. The same fellow Smith had used the same kind of insert close-up in the middle of his three-shot film "The Little Doctors" (1901) (now a lost film), which he remade as "Sick Kitten" (1903). Additionally, Porter had previously inserted a close-up of a fire alarm being pulled in "Life of an American Fireman" (1903).
"The Gay Shoe Clerk" is imitative, but not deplorable as were the dupes and shot-for-shot remakes also made by the Edison Company and other studios. It remains well made for 1903 and an amusing exploitation of cinema viewing's voyeuristic nature, with the punitive gag of the character being repeatedly hit for looking at the woman's leg, while we moviegoers get away unscathed.
More interestingly are the differences between the close-ups in Porter and Smith's films. The one in "As Seen Through a Telescope" is a masked point-of-view (POV) shot. Porter's view is not masked and is not a POV from any character's perspective, but is an ordinary ("invisible") close-up, matching-on-action, which isn't explained within the narrative, as a POV shot is. Standard film-making nowadays, but not in 1903. Yet, not even this use of the close-up was Porter's invention. The same fellow Smith had used the same kind of insert close-up in the middle of his three-shot film "The Little Doctors" (1901) (now a lost film), which he remade as "Sick Kitten" (1903). Additionally, Porter had previously inserted a close-up of a fire alarm being pulled in "Life of an American Fireman" (1903).
"The Gay Shoe Clerk" is imitative, but not deplorable as were the dupes and shot-for-shot remakes also made by the Edison Company and other studios. It remains well made for 1903 and an amusing exploitation of cinema viewing's voyeuristic nature, with the punitive gag of the character being repeatedly hit for looking at the woman's leg, while we moviegoers get away unscathed.