The Land Beyond the Sunset



The Land Beyond the Sunset, a 14-minute Edison film written by Dorothy G. Shore and directed by Harold Shaw, depicts a New York newsboy (Martin Fuller) from an abusive home in the tenements who attends a charity picnic where he hears a fairy tale about the idyllic Land Beyond the Sunset. When the others return to the city, the boy hides and stays behind, finding a small boat in which "he drifted to the Land Beyond the Sunset," as the final intertitle reads.

Social conscience films of this type were popular in the early teens, though few were as "genuinely lyrical," treating audiences as partners in the storytelling and allowing them to draw their own conclusions about the boy's ultimate fate.

The Land Beyond the Sunset was added to the National Film Registry in 2000.

Watch the film on this very page, or at the National Film Preservation Foundation's website.


 * Bland-Name Product: Averted. The Fresh Air Fund was (and still is) an actual organization that helps low-income children from New York City attend summer camps.