Although not the first feature-length animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and makes it the predecessor to later popular cartoons such as those by Walt Disney. The film was also the first to be created using keyframe animation.
Cartoon figures announce, via comic strip balloons, that they will move - and move they do, in a wildly exaggerated style. Also known as "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics".
Jack Howard, through hard work, has at last placed himself in a comfortable position and finds himself with his dear little wife, Mabel, located in a little apartment with all the comforts of home. He is now ready to enjoy married life; the strain has been too great, however, and he is almost on the verge of nervous prostration, sick and irritable. Mabel tries to cheer and comfort him; she waits on him and is a truly good and faithful wife, very much concerned about her hubby. She insists he must take a vacation.
Part two of Blackton's "The Life of Napoleon". After Waterloo, Napoleon reminisces. His triumphs are seen in flashback. The film ends with the exiled Napoleon overlooking the beach of St. Helena.
A hungry mosquito spots and follows a man on his way home. The mosquito slips into the room where the man is sleeping, and gets ready for a meal. His first attempts startle the man and wake him up, but the mosquito is very persistent.
A widower becomes infatuated with his daughter's governess, to the displeasure of the child and her nurse.
A cartoonist draws faces and figures on a blackboard - and they come to life.
A repairman falls in love with a blacksmith's daughter, who's having trouble with their greedy landlord, and helps them get one over on him.
The Hollisters, a bright, spirited, wholesome family, are compelled to move into the country. After many efforts to secure a home, Shirley, eldest of the Hollisters, contrives a way out by renting a magnificent old stone barn at a ridiculously low price, transforming it into a house. The owner of the barn is not an ordinary landlord, as you will see, for he is a young man with fine ideals, and he is not content with establishing Shirley and her family in the quaintly beautiful old place, but makes the world a much happier place to live in for all of them.
A Western melodrama about brothers, separated in early childhood, who wound up as opponents in a side-show wrestling match.
Surgeon Crisp announces to his student doctors and friends that he has solved the problem of limb-grafting, and shows proofs. Among those deeply interested is Mortmain, a musician and a friend of the surgeon.
Lillian Travers, a New York heiress, pops down to Florida to surprise her fiancé, Fred Cassadene, the house doctor at a prominent Saint Augustine hotel. The surprise, however, is Lillian's when she finds Fred in a series of compromising situations with a certain wealthy widow staying there. When she can take no more, Lillian discovers a box forgotten at an old curiosity shop in which lies a hundred-year-old secret: a vial of four rare and exotic African seeds that promises to transform whoever swallows one from a woman to a man or vice versa.
A traveler stays the night at a rural inn, but gets no rest as he is tormented by various spectres and mysterious happenings.
Shortly after being made the executor of a wealthy man's estate, a man murders his benefactor. He then makes a play for the widow, who rebuffs him. To escape his arduous pursuit, she takes her little daughter on a trip but dies in an auto accident. The daughter is rescued but disappears. Her grandparents spend years looking for her, as does the executor who killed her father--if she's found she'll inherit the estate and he won't get a penny. He aims to see that she's never found, and if she is he plans to see that she doesn't live long enough to make a claim to the estate.
Mrs. String, sitting under the rose bushes with her baby, Helen, on her knee, is approached lovingly by her husband, who lovingly speaks to his family and then shakes the rose bushes over their heads, causing the white leaves to fall upon their heads in a shower of rarest sun tints.
A bumbling sawmill employee tries to win the hand of the owner's daughter while staying out of the clutches of the mill's bullying foreman.
Beware the ire of the sacred God Ammett, or any other of those Egyptian Gods for that matter. As a bellhop in a hotel, Hughey managed to get possession of a wonderful ruby, the eye of Ammet, and with its aid obtained an introduction to a millionaire and his beautiful daughter. But Hughey failed to remember that for every ruby or other gem stolen from an Egyptian shrine, there is a bearded sheik who has taken a vow never to eat, drink or sleep until the talisman has been returned to the irate God from whom it was stolen, and vengeance has been wrought on the guilty one. Just when Hughey is enjoying himself immensely at a fine little dinner with the fair damsel, his nemesis, the sheik, discovers him and a lively chase takes place. The sheik gets the ruby in his possession but Hughey regains it in jig time and the prospects are that the poor sheik will have some wait before he can look a square meal in the face again.
It is sometimes decidedly difficult to get a little privacy on shipboard. Several times Jack Hardy almost reaches the proposal point with Marion Van Sickles, but each time the fates are against him. Marion and her mother are on their way home from a vacation in Europe and board the boat at Liverpool at the same time as Jack, who is very much struck by Marion's appearance. After a little flirtation on the boat, he believes that his feelings are returned and is about to propose. Just then mama comes along with Count Brainlesse, whom she wishes to marry Marion. The proposal is postponed. Again and again Jack tries to come to the point, being constantly interrupted by someone, either the count or mama, or the grouchy owner of the deck chair he has taken. First the grouch, then mama, and then the count, get sea-sick and at last Jack has Marion alone. Alas, the time has not yet come.
The Roman setting provides ample opportunity for a very high concentration of gag titles, many of which are quite witty and many of which are quaint for deriving their humor from the juxtaposition of having ancient Romans use a lot of hip 1918-era slang. The whole thing is an excuse for a good send-up of how the Roman Empire has been depicted in "serious" plays, movies, &c.
Diantha Ebberly travels with her parents to the edge of the Sahara to meet her longtime betrothed, Herbert Medford, whom she has never seen. She is rescued from a swarm of beggars by an "Arab," then meets him again when she slips out at night in native dress. They fall in love, but Diantha is abducted by Sheik Amud, then returned safely home by the "Arab." The next morning Diantha discovers her fiancé and lover to be one and the same.
