The Great Train Robbery 1903
After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.
After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.
This is the first movie version of the famous story. Alice dozes in a garden, awakened by a dithering white rabbit in waistcoat with pocket watch. She follows him down a hole and finds herself in a hall of many doors.
At the royal court, a prince is presenting the princess whom he is pledged to marry when a witch suddenly appears. Though driven off, the witch soon returns, summons some of her servants, and carries off the princess. A rescue party is quickly organized, but the unfortunate captive has been taken to a strange, forbidding realm, from where it will be impossible to rescue her without some special help.
Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of firemen responding to a house fire. They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from the burning house. But wait, she tells them of her child yet asleep in the burning bedroom...
A simple scene of two rather flamboyantly-dressed Edwardian children attempting to feed a spoonful of medicine to a sick kitten. The film is important for being one of the earliest films to cut to a close-up, then back again to the same medium shot as before.
A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.
This is a film taken of the execution of Topsy, an elephant employed to help build Luna Park on Coney Island.
Special effects film with a train double exposed on the negative, creating a ghostly image.
The story of Jesus Christ, from the proclamation of His Nativity to His Ascension into heaven. Impressive staging and beautiful hand-coloring distinguish the film from its Passion-play counterparts; Its scale and dynamic crowds prelude the Italian epics to come.
An Egyptian prince has lost his beloved wife and he has sought a dervish who dwells at the base of the sphinx.
Georgetown, 1901. A silver-mining town at 8,500 feet near the crest of the Rockies. Hooked somehow to the rear of a four-car passenger train is a camera that pans the scenery and, when the train goes around curves, looks ahead to see the engine and passenger cars: the passengers wave hundreds of white handkerchiefs out of the train's left-side windows for the benefit of the camera. The town comes into view; the tracks are above the town, so the camera looks down on dozens of modest rooftops as it pans the area. (AMB 1901, copyrighted 1903.)
A woman riding a train must contend with the unwelcome advances of a male passenger.
The leader of a marching band demonstrates an unusual way of writing music.
With godly entrapments, Zeus appears on the horizon, engages Hermes as an audience, and tries to throw some thunderbolts. They fizzle. Hephaestus tries to make some repairs but succeeds only in heating the bolts and burning Zeus's hands. Zeus conjures nine muses, but do their incantations help? He dismisses them as well as a visiting Pan, and his fits of pique become counter-productive. Can he get his powers back?
In certain sections of New York City large numbers of Jewish and Italian push-cart vendors congregate so closely along the sidewalks that they interfere with traffic. Policemen keep them moving. The picture shows how the frightened peddlers hurry away when a bluecoat appears. Some of the carts are piled high with fruits of all kinds, and it is interesting and amusing to see the expressions of combined fear and anxiety on the faces of the men as they hurry away; the fear of being arrested if they stand, and of losing some of their wares if the carts strike an obstruction in the street. Very fine photographically. (Edison film company catalog)
A box of valued jewels is placed inside the tomb of Delphi. A thief breaks into the tomb and steals it, but soon the ghost of Delphi appears and puts a curse on him.
A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella.
The scene is similar to that seen at Coney Island, where a number of shows are constantly going on.
Pluto, having seen the earth, comes back home amazed at the success of that well-known dance, the "cake-walk." He has brought back with him two noted well-known dancers, who start their favorite dance amidst the flames.
Alone in his room at an inn, a lustful old man is haunted by spirits.