A short film depicting a dramatized scene from the Boer War, produced by the Lancashire company Mitchell and Kenyon. The film portrays the rescue of two nurses from impending danger at the hands of Boer soldiers, thanks to the timely arrival of British troops. The filming took place on the outskirts of Blackburn.
Georges Méliès adaptation of Robinson Crusoe, the first film adaptation of the story. Filmed in black & white, Méliès would then paint the film by hand to colour it. Originally a 15 minute film, twelve and a half minutes of painted film have been found and have been restored.
Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.
Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk. Borrowing on cinematographic methods reminiscent of 'Georges Melies' , Porter uses animation, double exposure, and trick photography to illustrate the fairy's apparitions, Jack's dream, and the fast growing beanstalk.
An early hand-tinted adaptation of Ali Baba.
The adventures of D'Artagnan
A sentry is surprised by a bear and is trapped atop his guardhouse, until the timely intervention of a thief distracts the bear.
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.
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 Gaston Velle movie from 1904 was a fairly venturesome piece of film-making for the era. First, its credits include Jules Verne: his second after the Méliès TRIP TO THE MOON a couple of years earlier. Second, it uses a dozen cuts, irised lenses -- the balloonists' views through their telescope -- panning shots, combined images and tints. The tints were standard for the era, but everything else had to be achieved with great difficulty. In an era when most movies still lasted a minute with a stationary camera and a single set-up, this was pretty much state of the art.
Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.
Based loosely on the once-popular nursery rhyme. A fair is in progress, with refreshments, entertainment, and other activities. As the rest of the crowd is watching one of the acts, the titular Tom steals a pig from another little boy and runs off. He tries to hide, but he is chased by the crowd. The pig also proves difficult to control. Tom, the little boy, and the crowd run from place to place.
A happy Russian family is broken up when their patriarch is arrested for treason. His distraught wife joins the secret society of nihilists and is assigned to commit an act of terror. Based on the play "Vera; or, The Nihilists" by Oscar Wilde.
A poor but honest man wins great wealth, and the hand of a beautiful princess, after facing a series of exciting trials in the tunnels and catacombs of ancient Araby. Guided by the mysterious Khalafar, the troupe (alongside him go some cowardly scholars) encounter skeletons, fire-breathing lizards, and mirages on their journey through the lower world.
A man needs to get to Monte Carlo from Paris, but finds out that a train will take 17 hours to get there. He decides to go with a man with a special car, who claims that he can get there in just two hours. Complications ensue.
A film adaptation of the play by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey.
A British soldier is made prisoner by a Zulu, who tries to set fire on the Union Jack. A bulldog runs on the rescue terrorizing the Zulu. This allows the soldier to free himself from the rope, to burn the kraal and to save the Union Jack.
A writer of tawdry fiction falls asleep at his desk and dreams of a romantic rivalry-- One likely as familiar to film fans then as it is now-- But things take a turn for the bizarre when our hero is shot in the head. An ambitious and hilarious parody of melodramatic tropes from pioneer Blackton.
Four Arab men in white burnouses, two women in grey, and one female cook in striped burnous, are sitting in front of a cave in a forest path. (From a piece of grey cloth over the entrance to the cave, two 8-pointed white stars hang incongruously: the Production company's logo.) A pan hangs from a tripod. A girl in a colorful dress arrives with a Bucovina shepherd dog, and starts dancing in front of the men. First, half of the men go, then the others and the girl leave. Only one man stays, taking care of the food being prepared in the pot. Snivelling from their hiding place, a robber jumps him, and knocks him out with a blow. Three thugs join him, and they take whatever they find in the cave (guns). The dog comes back, and sits a while near the fallen cook. The Arabs return, and are alarmed at the robbery, and the killing of their cook. Meanwhile, somewhere.
The film, a parody of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, follows a fisherman, Yves, who dreams of traveling by submarine to the bottom of the ocean, where he encounters both realistic and fanciful sea creatures, including a chorus of naiads played by dancers from the Théâtre du Châtelet. Méliès's design for the film includes cut-out sea animals patterned after Alphonse de Neuville's illustrations for Verne's novel.