Uncovering the real pioneer of filmmaking

For more than a century, Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers of France have been celebrated as the creators of motion pictures. But a lesser-known Frenchman working in England made the world's first film years before them, CBS News' Jonathan Vigliotti reports.

In the English city of Leeds, Louis Le Prince is an icon, a French engineer, who as filmmaker David Wilkinson explains, made history.

"'In 1888, he patented a one-lens camera with which he filmed Leeds Bridge from this British Waterways building,'" Wilkinson reads from a plaque. "'These were probably the world's first successful moving pictures.'"

In his new documentary, Wilkinson hopes to tell the world what his hometown of Leeds already knows: Le Prince was the first man to make a movie.

"He beat all the others," Wilkinson said. "He beat Thomas Edison, he beat the Lumiere brothers by several years."

Edison and the Lumiere brothers have long been considered the pioneers of film and cinema.

In 1894 in New York, the Edison company premiered their first publicly shown film, "The Blacksmith Scene," and went on to produce such crowd-pleasers as "Cats Boxing."

One year later in France, Louis and Auguste Lumiere filmed and released a movie of workers leaving their factory in Lyon. Edison and the Lumieres gained worldwide acclaim, despite the evidence that shows Le Prince created his films several years earlier.

The proof is the date of the death of one of his main characters, Sara Whitely. Wilkinson tracked down her grave: Oct. 24, 1888.

"And that to me is concrete proof because you can't fake a death," Wilkinson said.

All Le Prince had to do to secure his place in history was show his film to an audience. Le Prince was set to premiere his film in New York, but in the weeks leading up to his trip, he left London to visit family in France, and he would never return.

Le Prince was last seen on Sept. 16, 1890, boarding an express train to Paris.

But when his train arrived at its final destination, Le Prince never got off. He and his bags seemingly vanished into thin air.

"There is a great conspiracy theory," said Bryony Dixon, a silent film historian at the British Film Institute. "We'd all love to believe that early cinema was so important that somebody would have gone to the lengths of murdering somebody."

Dixon isn't buying that conspiracy but says Le Prince did show a cinematic eye that was way ahead of his competitors.

"He understands instinctively to take, on the Leeds bridge film, a high point to look down on lots of different people moving," Dixon said. "And this is what excites people about early film."

And it's what got Wilkinson hooked 30 years ago when he first began researching Le Prince. Along the way, he's made major discoveries, like blueprints for a theater.

Le Prince's films and groundbreaking cameras only got as far as the National Media Museum in Bradford, where they are today.

Though a list of his film ideas owned by his great-great-granddaughter show that, had he lived, Le Prince may have produced the blockbusters of his time.

Now Wilkinson wants to give Le Prince the audience he deserves.

"I think it's very important if somebody does something that improves the lot of mankind, and film certainly has done that, that the person that's responsible for that, all people who are responsible for that, should be acknowledged," Wilkinson said.

In November, on what would have been the 125th anniversary of Le Prince's New York screening, Wilkinson hopes to show his film in Harlem.

It will be the final act in cinema's first story.