A band-leader has arranged seven chairs for the members of his band. When he sits down in the first chair, a cymbal player appears in the same chair, then rises and sits in the next chair. As the cymbal player sits down, a drummer appears in the second chair, and then likewise moves on to the third chair. In this way, an entire band is soon formed, and is then ready to perform.
A cartoonist defies reality when he draws objects that become three-dimensional after he lifts them off his sketch pad.
A divinely inspired peasant woman becomes an army captain for France and then is martyred after she is captured.
A cleverly conceived picture of a little boy and girl with building blocks. The little girl has erected a pretty structure, which the boy proceeds to demolish with pokes of his fingers. When the demolition of the house is completed, the film is shown in reverse, and the little building comes back to its original form in a most marvellous manner.
A child borrows his grandmother's magnifying glass to look at a newspaper ad for Bovril, at a watch, and then at a bird. The child shows grandma what he is doing. The child looks next at grandma's eye, then at a kitten.
A series of fantastical wrestling matches.
An elderly gentleman in a silk hat sits on a stool in front of a store on the main street of town. He has a telescope that focuses on the ankle of a young woman who is a short distance away. Her husband catches the gent looking. What will the two men do now?
The titles tell us this film is based on an incident in the Boxer Rebellion. A man tries to defend a woman and a large house against Chinese attackers. They attack with swords, guns, and paddles. He's over-matched. What will become of the mission, its defenders, and its occupants?
Footage from the dawn of film taken in Belle Époque-era Paris, France from 1896-1900.
The entire story of Christmastide is here depicted. The scene opens in a large boudoir of an apparently wealthy man's home. His children, assisted by their governess, are about to retire. Before lying down they hang up their stockings on the edge of the bed. The picture changes and night appears. We see the housetops of the town and angels are flying about depositing packages in each of the chimneys. (Edison Catalog)
A man takes off his clothes in preparation for bed, only for new clothes to spontaneously generate, leading to comical consternation.
A turn-of-the-last-century hand-tinted short, which features two women, Miss Lally and Miss Julyett, dancing at a ball. By the legendary French filmmaker Alice Guy.
Possibly the first film to utilize the technique of focus pulling. A man kisses a beautiful and lively woman, then the image blurs and dissolves into a clear image of the man waking up to his nagging wife.
The fairy at a cabbage patch hovers over the babies. This is a remake of Guy's 1896 film on the same subject, this time shot in 35 mm.
Columbine resists Pierrette's courting in favour of Harlequin in this hand-coloured short by Alice Guy.
The scene is a railroad track on the side of a steep mountain, with a tunnel in the background, toward which a train is running at a high rate of speed. At this instant the audience is appalled at the sight of a second train rushing out of the tunnel. Both trains are on the same track and traveling toward each other at a high rate of speed. They collide. Cars and engines are smashed into fragments and thrown down the steep incline. (Edison Catalog)
An early trick film where a car explodes and body parts fall from the sky. A policeman witnesses and attempts to piece the remains back together.
The picture opens with the Sultan lying down to rest on his luxurious cushioned couch. The scene changes to the grounds around the palace.
Sailors row a whaling boat in a medium-tight shot.
Sherlock Holmes enters his drawing room to find it being burgled, but on confronting the villain is surprised when the latter disappears.
