The Movies > Sorcerer's Stone Stills, Part 1

SORCERER'S STONE STILLS, PART 1

The following images are scenes from the 2001 movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Just about all of the official Warner Bros. stills were taken by a photographer named Peter Mountain. In some cases, these movie stills include passages from the book to compare how the filmmakers put words into moving images.

In this picture, from the official movie site, Harry is the only one who is excited about the great rain of letters from Hogwarts School. This scene also is in the first movie trailer, and it appears that it's longer than it is the book. This incident covered only about three paragraphs in the book, and occurred in the kitchen at breakfast, not in the living room, as this picture shows. In the trailer, Harry grabs a letter out of the air in the living room and looks at the address, which is shown in closeup. In the book, he actually saw a letter’s address before the living room craziness. And, on a smaller note, Aunt Petunia and Dudley have dark hair, while they both had blond in the book.

From the book:

Harry ... went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon’s sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and – a letter for Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives – he didn’t belong to the library, so he’d never even gotten rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr. H. Potter
The Cupboard Under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

The envelop was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

And later, the letter assault, as shown in the picture:

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as [Uncle Vernon] spoke and caught him sharply on the back of his head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air, trying to catch one –

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut.

The next few pictures are from Dark Horizons, an Australian science fiction and movie site. The second featured still is a good look at the Dursleys – Dudley (Harry Melling), Uncle Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw). They look pretty bewildered: perhaps it’s after Harry reveals that he actually got a letter. Dudley is wearing the new boys’ school uniform he received, just prior to Harry finding his letter.

Here is how the book describes these scenes:

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings’ boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren’t looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life...

Harry brings in the mail...

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.

Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

... "Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry’s got something!"

Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That’s mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.

"Who’d be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

...Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it look as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh, my goodness – Vernon!"

The third still from Dark Horizons shows Harry and Ron talking about something. They look pretty serious. What scene from the book this represents can only be discovered by watching the movie.

The fourth picture shows Harry with Hedwig, his faithful snowy owl, out in a Hogwarts courtyard in the winter. This scene probably takes place near or during Christmas and also can be seen for a couple of shots in the "teaser" preview of coming attractions.

This image shows Professor Minerva McGonagall reaching for the Sorting Hart on Hermione, which has sent her to Gryffindor House. In the book, Hermione put the Sorting Hat on her own head. This picture is most likely not McGonagall putting the hat on; she appears to be about to take it off. And McGonagall is not wearing her distinctive square-lensed glasses; only one scene of Dame Maggie Smith is shown in the first trailer, and she has no spectacles there, either. However, in certain scenes she does wear the McGonagall glasses.

Clearly visible at the table are Professors Severus Snape and Quirrell (in turban), and Professor Albus Dumbledore in the throne-like chair. The man at the far left I can't identify -- he is a professor who is more clearly seen in the Harry sorting shot.

Here are some book excerpts related to this scene:

...Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it into the house.

..."Granger, Hermione!" [Professor McGonagall said].

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Ron groaned...

[Harry] could see the High Table now. At the end nearest him sat Hagrid. ... And there in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban. ...

Harry ... looked up at the High Table again. ... Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose and sallow skin. ...

"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" he asked Percy.

"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous; that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to -- everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."

The book excerpt:

...Malfoy smiled nastily.

"I think I'll leave it [Neville's Rememberall] somewhere for Longbottom to find -- how about -- up a tree?"

"Give it here!" Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. He hadn't been lying, he could fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak, he called, "Come and get it, Potter!"

Harry grabbed his broom.

"No!" shouted Hermione Granger. "Madam Hooch told us not to move -- you'll get us all into trouble."

Harry ignored her. Blood was pounding in his ears. He mounted the broom and kicked hard againt the ground and up, up he soared...

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