A growing source of silent era film information. This listing is from The Progressive Silent Film List by Carl Bennett. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

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The Merchant of Venice
(1908) United States of America
B&W : One reel / 995 feet
Directed by [?] William V. Ranous and/or J. Stuart Blackton?

Cast: William V. Ranous [Shylock], Julia Swayne Gordon [Portia], Florence Turner [Jessica], Maurice Costello, Paul Panzer

The Vitagraph Company of America production; distributed by The Vitagraph Company of America. / Scenario by Liebler (Theodore A. Liebler Jr.), from the play The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. / © 9 December 1908 by The Vitagraph Company of America [H119440]. Released 22 December 1908. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The play was subsequently filmed as Il Mercante di Venezia (1911).

Drama.

Survival status: Print exists in the Library of Congress film archive (paper print collection) [35mm paper positive].

Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].

Keywords: Authors: William Shakespeare (1564?-1616)

Listing updated: 7 December 2024.

References: Ball-Shakespeare pp. 50-51, 88, 312-313, 388; Blum-Silent p. 10; Shipman-Cinema p. 38 : Website-AFI; Website-IMDb.