Rip Van Winkle (1921 film) Catskill mountains. Upon drinking a strange concoction of theirs, he falls asleep and wakes up 20 years later. Rip Van Winkle (1921 film) Rip Van Winkle is a 1921 American silent fantasy film directed by Edward Ludwig and starring Thomas Jefferson and Milla Davenport in oft-filmed story made famous in the 19th century by Thomas Jefferson's father, Joseph Jefferson. T. Jefferson had starred in a 1914 feature-length version of the story which was re-released in 1921 just as this film was premiering. However, they should not be confused as the same film, they are two different films starring the same
Washington Irving the offer down, opting to stay in England to pursue a writing career. In the spring of 1819, Irving sent to his brother Ebenezer in New York a set of short prose pieces that he asked be published as "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." The first installment, containing "Rip Van Winkle", was an enormous success, and the rest of the work would be equally successful; it was issued in 1819–1820 in seven installments in New York, and in two volumes in London ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" would appear in the sixth issue of the New York edition,