The Cock Fight (1894) User Reviews

Two cocks are better than one.

[ronin-88 · 4/10 · 1 April 2022]

There were actually two films made by the Edison Film Company. Cockfight (1894) was one of the first films made to play on the Edison Company's Kinetoscope viewer. The film was so popular that the negatives wore out and the director, W. K. L. Dickson remade the film the following year. For the second film, two spectators were recruited to point at the fighting cocks and act excited. It is this second film, Cockfight No. 2 that we see the day. The first film is likely gone for good.

It's an interesting and historic film although some modern viewers may be disgusted by the idea of animals fighting for the entertainment of us humans. This film and the other Edison kinetoscope products may function as a film snapshot of what interested the mass audience in the 1890s.

The Movie Sometimes Shown Under This Title Is Actually "Cock Fight No. 2"

[Snow Leopard · 8 December 2005]

This title is one of a number of examples of how easily some of the earliest movies can become confused with one another. "The Cock Fight" was one of the earliest of the Edison Company's Kinetoscope features, and when the original negatives quickly wore out, they shot a remake later in the same year in order to accommodate the demand for it. It is the remake, "Cock Fight No. 2", that is included in a number of currently available DVD or video collections, but it is sometimes shown under the title of the original.

The original "The Cock Fight" supposedly showed only two birds fighting, without the spectators in the background who appear in "Cock Fight No. 2". According to film historian Charles Musser (in his comments to "Cock Fight No. 2" in Kino's DVD collection of Edison movies) the remake added the spectators and also switched to a white background, instead of the black background that was apparently used for the original.

The movie that actually represents this title, then, probably no longer exists, and an Edison movie shown as "The Cock Fight" (or as "Cock Fight") is probably "Cock Fight No. 2". The other two reviews here (at least as of the time of this writing) are both commenting on the remake, rather than on the original (and they are worth reading in regards to the remake).

The controversial subject matter of both movies would understandably put off many present-day viewers from watching them anyway, but if nothing else they can serve as a historical example that illustrates some of the characteristics of the early film-making industry.

No thank you

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 3 May 2017]

I understand the most usual situations were depicted in the very early days of cinema and the novelty of the medium made it still a spectacular watch. So why go for a repulsive spectacle like cock fights, Mr. Dickson? And I even wonder more how people can have a great time watching these as the two in the video here certainly have, looking at the action, smiling and probably betting on the outcome. This film and the sequel to it (yes there is one, one of very very few sequels that were made that far back in film history and it's about such a topic???) are a bit of a dark cloud over Dickson's mostly fine filmography. "The Cock Fight" is thirty seconds not only worth forgetting as nothing really interesting or of remotely artistic value happens, but it's just violent propaganda. Should never have been made, unless the cruelty was aimed at directing people away from these horrid celebrations, but doesn't seem that way to me. Not recommended. Not even remotely.