Walter R. Booth's 1911 short film The Automatic Motorist depicts an inventor-built automated driver ferrying a newlywed couple on a surreal, effects-driven voyage that reaches the moon and Saturn.
The Automatic Motorist is a fuller remake of Booth's 1906 sketch The ? Motorist and showcases early special-effects techniques—live action, models and animation—used by the magician and pioneer of British cinema Walter R. Booth; the film predates the term "robot," which was coined in 1920 by Karel Čapek.
The six-minute film opens in an inventor's workshop, features a mechanical driver encountering a handcuffed police officer and a dog, and includes a largely unidentified early British car that resembles period Regals.
Read the full article at theautopian.com.
More automotive news: Latest car news