This is a reenactment of the execution of Queen Mary. This clip was filmed in Edison's studio on August 28, 1895. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a dummy. The axe comes down and severs the head of the dummy from the body. The executioner picks up the head and shows it around for everyone else to see. One of the first 'camera tricks' to be used in a movie. It shocked audiences in its day, but for obvious reasons it today looks quite fake. This is also one of the first if not the first film reproducing a historical scene going for the best possible realism, a description that later became a definition for a genre. This was the first film in history to use trained actors.
