All Films

Release of a ship.

An impecunious chap is unable to pay his rent, whereupon he is ejected, but all his furniture is retained and he is allowed to remove only his rolling bed. Pulling this a few blocks, he is exhausted and lies down on the bed to rest. He is soon the center of attraction, and the crowd continues to gather, when the police order him away, and as he refuses to move he is started off by the officers, who guide him for a time, but are forcibly deterred by indignant citizens from further interference. The impecunious man and his bed, which gains momentum as it runs down the inclines, cause much excitement en route, and finally arrive at the business center, where it comes to a stop alongside the walk. Our friend has purloined a fur coat and an auto horn on his tour, and now presents a modern chauffeur. (Gaumont catalogue)

The film is incomplete and there are no preserved programmes which explain the story. The fragment consists of the following scenes: Scene 1: An older and a younger man are talking in a living room. Scene 2: The young man is courting a woman and is rejected on account of another suitor. Scene 3: The older man receives a telegram about a shipwreck. The news almost drives him to take his own life. Scene 4: The two men are now standing outside a shop and seem happy again. A woman is sitting with a child on her lap, perhaps belonging to the young man and the woman he previously pursued. The film was directed by Viggo Larsen, who, as far as we know, directed all films for Denmark’s first film company, Nordisk Films Kompagni, in the period between 1906 and 1909. Viggo Larsen also plays the young man in the film. -Stumfilm.dk

The artist studio is decorated with a rug, a chaise lounge, a small table, a plinth, a couple of copies of classic sculptures, a vase with flowers, a few prints on the walls, and on the wood paneled lower half of the wall, an 8-pointed star [Saturn-Film's logo]. The artist is wearing a white shirt over his grey trousers, shirt and necktie, and he is wearing black shoes. With hammer and chisel, he applies the last touches on his last piece of sculpture - The Three Graces, standing nude on a rectangular podium covered with a white bed-shirt. He steps back, contemplates his work, and rejoices on the beauty he has achieved. He goes out momentarily, and brings a bottle of champagne and a glass; before drinking, he makes a toast to his finished statue. He drinks, smokes a cigarette, and contemplates his work - until he falls asleep on the chaise lounge. Only then do The Three Graces stir, and tip-toe around their creator. One even dares to approach her lips to the artist's.

Cheering crowds and much jubilation greet the launch of the Accrington to Oswaldtwistle electric tram service.

A boy is put to bed by his mother, but when she leaves the room, he pulls out a book. Dropping off to sleep, he begins to dream. The wall behind him transforms into a screen, with a portrait of Jules Verne. The boy imagines the starry night sky, with comets shooting by. The gondola of a balloon parks outside his window. He climbs aboard, ascending over a skyline and harbor.

Norway's first film, a silent film about a fisherman and his son. The son falls in the water while they are working and disappears in the depths.

A talented youth has compounded a wonderful fluid, a little of which he applies to the mirror in his room, and when he looks into it his image comes to life and comes out of the frame and imitates his every action. As soon as he rubs the fluid off the mirror his double disappears. When the servant come in, a little of the fluid is again rubbed on the mirror, and he has the same experience, his reflection stepping out and doing stunts, thereby scaring the poor fellow almost to death. The inventor of the fluid then takes the mirror with him and goes out on the street.

A middle-aged woman in rural dress and a young woman in a smarter dress are picking up herbs in a forest. The workload and the sunny day call for a halt for refreshment. The young girl disrobes, and enters the nearby river in the nude, followed by the mature woman who simply fathers her long skirts up to her waist, revealing her naked thighs and white-slip covered buttocks. The camera follows them to the right, capturing the water movement, and their splashing about. (A white sunflower stands alone in the midst of the water creeks - hinting at the Production company's logo, an 8-pointed star.) A fisherman arrives and starts throwing his hook at the fish, with no results; so, he moves to the right, and throws the hook again, this time capturing the heavy mature woman who comes from behind the curtain of willows, complaining of pain in the lower of her back. A policeman in city uniform and white casket appears, to expel both the fisherman and the woman from the place.

A prisoner attempts a daring escape using trick transformations, dissolving and reassembling into new forms as he eludes capture. This early Vitagraph short showcases imaginative special effects in a comic take on prison break fantasy.

A woman enters her sitting room and begins to undress, as she feels a Pulicomorpha crawling under her clothes. Pathé Frères production Nº 1641.

Medieval legend, a story about marital fidelity of the falsely accused Genevieve towards her husband Siegfried. The story has been adopted in several narratives, musical plays and for the cinema screen.

A German Tonbild, or 'Sound Picture'.

A footage of an orchestra at Frederiksberg Theater.

Compilation of two shorts also distributed independently: Cricket und Reifenspiel [Croquet and the Arc and Hook Game], and Springschnur und Amazonen [Jump Roping and the Amazons]. In a sunny day, on a lawn in the woods, three nude, young brunettes with little flower arrangements on their hair are playing a succession of three dexterity games: throwing and catching three arcs with the use of a thin long hook, jumping the rope (soon replaced by a long piece of light cloth), and using the arcs as hoops for a bit of croquet with appropriate mallets and balls.

Two clowns perform acrobatic routines with each other, but suddenly start fighting. One of them finds and hides inside a large canvas sack that turns out to have magic properties. (stumfilm.dk)

Boy tricks his father into drinking castor oil. The latter is obliged to defecate in a series of unlikely places, to the evident disgust of members of the Parisian public. The status of this film is rather unusual, since it's not listed in the Pathé catalogues and never appeared in the French press of the time, but a surviving copy is preserved under the German title 'Der Kleine Schlaumeier'. It should not be confused with Gaumont's version "C’est papa qui prend la purge" by Louis Feuillade.

On their wedding night, the newlyweds are ready to go to bed with the ceremony of taking off their clothes, the bride, and the groom wanting to see what he has not seen yet.

Jack and the daughter of a horse trainer are in love with each other, but when the trainer discovers them together, he makes it clear that Jack is unwelcome. Later, at the stables, another suitor for the daughter's hand appears. An unusual agreement is reached, under which the result of a race will determine which of the two the daughter will marry. But Jack's rival proves to be unscrupulous, and he will stop at nothing to be successful.

A generous boy tries to help a girl who does not believe in Santa Claus because of her family's poverty.

Stencil-coloured version of Segundo de Chomón's Les roses magiques (1906).

A series of comic mishaps in house boxes at a music hall.

A series of static shots of the buildings of the California Mission system, as they existed in 1907. Because many of the Mission buildings were in poor states of repair in 1907, director Norman Dawn uses glass shots, a technique where paintings are applied to a sheet of glass placed between the camera and the objects being photographed, in order to restore roofs and walls that had been destroyed.