All Films

Tanz der Salome

1906 • 3 min • Germany

In the image of Salomé, the excluded other - nature, sexuality, the feminine - returns as an attraction and a threat. In a mixture of striptease and opera, Adorée Villany in front of the camera crosses the boundaries of both genres.

Her Morning Dip

1906 • 6 min • United Kingdom

Some men stalk a lady on her way to the beach.

Panoramic View, Waikiki from an Electric Car, Hawaiian Islands

1906 • 3 min

A view of Waikiki in 1906.

The Life Guards on Amager

1906 • 1 min • Denmark

Ballet by August Bournonville 1871. With Hans Beck, Valborg Borchsenius (née Guldbrandsen) and Ellen Price. (Stumfilm.DK)

Tartans of Scottish Clans

1906 • 3 min • United Kingdom

It's common knowledge that Scotsmen are macho enough to pull off wearing a skirt - perhaps it's all that caber-tossing. This disarmingly simple film concentrates on the tartan cloths of various clans rather than the men who wore them, and is an early filmic reminder of their huge importance to both Scottish national identity and the thriving tourist industry north of the border. The film's unique selling point was that pioneering filmmaker G. A. Smith showed off the vibrant designs in Kinemacolor, among the earliest colour film processes that didn't involve meticulous hand-painting. And no dangly bits in sight.

The Spiritist Faustinus

1906 • 3 min • Denmark

The short clip shows a spiritualist séance featuring a medium and two ‘spirits’, shot in Peter Elfelt’s studio. Dr Faustinus (1868–1946 – real name Faustinus Edelberg Pedersen), after whom the film is named, was an active figure within the field of spiritism and the occult. (Stumfilm.dk)

The Arlberg Railway

1906 • 6 min • United Kingdom

In 1906, the Arlberg Railway, which connects the Austrian cities of Innsbruck and Bludenz, is the only east-west mountain railway in Austria. This 340-second "ghost railroad ride" shows the view from the back of a train, though I'm not sure if it's heading east or west. This kind of film, in vogue at the time, is an intermediate form of short reality, which often showed a train engaging in a bend, and a feature documentary. Its editing is live, linear and temporal, and the cuts are very apparent. Indeed, the choices of where to place the cuts seem to have avoided the less populated stretches. There are plenty of buildings to see, even when the train is not at the station.

Intercalated Games

1906 • 1 min • Greece

Highlights of the Athens 1906 Olympic Games.

The Funeral of King Christian IX

1906 • 15 min

Christian IX (b. 1818) died 29 January 1906. He was king of Denmark for 42 years. With his many family ties to the royal houses of Europe, he was known as 'Europe's father-in-law'. After castrum doloris in Christiansborg church, the coffin was transported by train to Roskilde cathedral, where Danish monarchs are laid to rest.

Anna, what are you waiting for?

1906 • 2 min • France

Modern Americans think that the movies learned to talk in 1927 when Al Jolson opened his mouth in THE JAZZ SINGER, but sound pictures had a much longer history. Edison envisaged combining the phonograph with motion pictures even before they had been perfected and there is a test sequence from 1895. By the time this 'phonoscene' had been made, Alice Guy had been directing a series of them and there was a series in production in Germany, too. Yet true synchronization remained a problem, what with records wearing out and film breaking until the perfection of sound on film itself.

Electric Current

1906 • 2 min • France

A couple steals food from a grocery store. To stop them from repeating their crime, the cunning salesman electrifies his shop.

In the Family Garden

1906 • 4 min • Slovenia

A short film from Slovenia made by Karol Grossmann.

Solser and Hesse

1906 • 1 min • Netherlands

A sequel to the last film from 1900, a single one-act “talkie” sound on-disk film produced by the Royal Bioscope

Bob's Theater

1906 • 6 min • France

Little Bob stages his mechanical toys in a series of charming performances.

Wania Tartakoff

1906 • 1 min • Denmark

Spirited Ukrainian trepak dance, performed by Russian soloist Wania Tartakoff. (Stumfilm.DK)

Buffon Dance

1906 • 2 min • Russia

The Village Witch

1906 • 8 min • France

Leaving for town, a peasant comes upon a witch who puts him under her spell. Neither the jeers of his companions or the supplications of his young wife prevent him from following the witch. The villagers, pitying the wife, pursue the witch and throw her into the water. When the witch dies, the spell is broken and the husband returns to his forgiving wife. (PAT Oct 1906)

The Wrestler's Wife

1906 • 5 min • France

A story of a desperate wife who worries about her husband, a career wrestler.

A Voyage Around a Star

1906 • 7 min • France, Italy

An old astronomer has been transfixed by a star for a long time. He had but one thought: to travel to it, to declare his love for it! But how? A simple but ingenious solution-- A giant bubble. Velle remade the film for Italian studio Cines in the same year.

And the Villain Still Pursued Her; or, the Author's Dream

1906 • 6 min • United States of America

A pulp writer dozes off at his desk and dreams himself into a melodrama of love and rivalry. What begins as a familiar tale soon veers into absurdity—complete with outrageous twists, overblown villains, and even a gunshot to the head. J. Stuart Blackton’s parody gleefully skewers the clichés of stage melodrama in one of early cinema’s most inventive comedies.

Bathing Forbidden

1906 • 1 min • Austria

Three young women are smiling and playing in a lake, their nude bodies reflecting in the water, when a forest watcher appears from the wood, and chases them away. They get out of the water, pick their clothes from tree branches, and move away before putting them on. The bearded man seems to be shy, but he is chasing after them through the wood, anyway.

Militære Opvisninger paa Fælleden

1906 • 3 min

Fragments of military showing off.

Poor Mother

1906 • 6 min • France

A woman loses her only child. She turns to drink and begins to hallucinate an image of her beloved child.

Indian Scenes

1906 • 11 min

This is, for 1906, a strikingly ambitious prototype-documentary travelogue filmed in and around the cities now called Kolkata and Mumbai. It's full of precious, occasionally startling images, from an extended 'phantom ride' down busy Calcutta streets to thronging port life, street trading, even the cremation of a human body and the ritual decapitation of lambs on a Bombay street – a scene some viewers may find upsetting. This is a French production but, like many of the 'exotic' travel films so popular in early cinema, it travelled widely itself – hence this version, with English language intertitles.