Faust (1926, Germany)

Faust was the mammoth German production which won F. W. Murnau his contract with Hollywood's Fox Studios. Emil Jannings glowers his way through the role of Mephistopholes, who offers the aging Faust (Gosta Eckman) an opportunity to relive his youth, the price being Faust's soul. Though highly stylized, the film is unsettlingly realistic at times, especially during the execution of the unfortunate Gretchen. Even in old age, actress Camilla Horn could recall how close she came to genuine immolation when Murnau burned her at the stake. An American version of Faust had been planned earlier as a Mary Pickford vehicle, but Pickford's mother wanted no part of a film in which her darling daughter strangled her own baby. The scenario for Faust touches lightly upon the previous retellings by Goethe and Marlowe, but is more heavily reliant on the paintings of Pietr Breughel.

Slippery Jim - 1910

Ferdinand Zecca (1864 in Paris -- March 6, 1947 in Paris) was an early French film director.
Zecca was a cafe entertainer, playing the cornet, before switching to film in his mid-30s. His first film credit, Le Muet mélomane (1899), was the film version of a musical fantasy which he and a colleague named Charlus performed in Parisian cafés at the time.
At the Paris World Fair (Exposition Universelle) in 1900, French film manufacturer, Charles Pathé, hired Zecca to assist him in setting up his pavilion. Zecca did so well that Pathé hired him as assistant to the director of his film factory in Vincennes.

A Romance of the Rail - 1903

A 4:30 American film by the Edison Manufacturing Company from 1903.

An Otter Study (1912, United Kingdom)

Watching this recently unearthed treasure is all the more amazing when you realise the footage itself was shot as long ago as 1912. The surviving version of the film you see here was re-edited in the 1920s and titled The Otter, with a final hunting scene removed. Intertitles tell us all about the habits of this fascinating creature, alongside the first known shots of an otter swimming underwater. We even get to see the cameramen setting up their special tank in the river for filming these scenes.

A Florida Enchantment - 1914

Three and a half minute condensation of the Vitagraph film "A Florida Enchantment", produced and directed by Sidney Drew, starring Sidney Drew, Edith Storey, and Jane Morrow.

The film was shot on location in Saint Augustine, Florida. The story is taken from the Archibald Clavering Gunter novel of the same name. It was the second Gunter novel Vitagraph adapted to the screen, the first being "Mr. Barnes of New York" with Maurice Costello. "A Florida Enchantment" was first shown at the Vitagraph Theatre on the 10th of August, 1914.

Although well remembered today, at the time it was critically panned and a commercial failure (in large part because, when filming began in April of 1914, it was expected to do well in Europe, but World War I broke out before it was ready for release and Vitagraph lost more than half of its market).

The full-length film is available on DVD and this abridgment can be purchased on Super 8mm.

Cripple Creek Bar-room Scene - 1899

USA. One of Edison's early 19th century films.

Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King - 1901

Dance, Franchonetti Sisters - 1903

SUMMARY
Three young women with dark, curly hair stand on a stage with a black background and patterned carpet or tile underfoot. They wear tights, ballet shoes, and frilly dresses to the knee with multiple petticoats and ruffled drawers. They begin by raising their right legs up by their heads, and then perform a dance with a variety of kicks and leg movements, their hands either in the air or pulling up their skirts. The sisters also grab their right legs again and hop in a circle, then do cartwheels and land on the floor in the splits. Jumping back to their feet, the women twirl in circles and around each other in circles in what appears to be a type of pirouette, while holding up their skirts and showing their bloomers in a manner similar to the cancan.
From Biograph picture catalogue: 22 feet. The French quadrille dance by a popular team of vaudeville artists.
CREATED/PUBLISHED
United States: American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, 1903.
NOTES
Copyright: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.; 24Apr1903; H30723.
Performers: Franchonetti Sisters.
Filmed in the Biograph New York City studio.
SUBJECTS
Quadrille (Dance)--United States.
Dance--United States.
Dancers--United States.
Silent films.
Dance.
Vaudeville.
Shorts.
RELATED NAMES
Franchonetti Sisters.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress)

A Wake in "Hell's Kitchen" - 1900

 SUMMARY
Takes place on a rather plain room set, with a single religious picture and a coat hanging from the plain, white walls. An open coffin sits in the center of the room, with its lid leaning against the back wall. An older, grey-haired woman--presumably the widow--stands holding a bunch of flowers to the left of the coffin, wailing and wiping away her tears with her apron. On the other side of the coffin sit two male mourners in three-piece suits, drinking beer. As the two men talk and light a pipe and the woman turns away in her grief, the occupant of the coffin--an older, balding man--sits up and looks around. He spies a large mug of beer to the side, picks it up, drinks all of the ale, and lies back down. When the woman places her flowers in the coffin, she notices the empty mug and questions the two mourners. The three engage in a heated argument, during which the ""corpse"" throws the flowers out of the coffin. Seeing this, the woman falls in a faint. In their hurry to get away, the two men knock over the coffin, spilling the supposed deceased on top of the woman.
From Biograph picture catalogue, Nov. 1902 [MI], p. 39: 30 feet. This scene is laid in the parlor of a New York tenement. Two watchers at the wake are smoking and drinking, while the widow is weeping over the coffin. The attention of the three is attracted for an instant, and the supposed corpse rises up, drinks all the beer in the pitcher which is standing on a table nearby, and lies down in the coffin again. The mourners return, and seeing that the beer is gone, engage in a controversy over it. During the scrap the corpse jumps out of the coffin and takes part in the melee.
CREATED/PUBLISHED
United States: American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, [1900?]
NOTES
Copyright: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.; 12June1903; H32563.
Camera, Arthur Marvin.
Filmed July 26, 1900, on the roof of the Biograph New York City studio.
SUBJECTS
Wake services--New York (State)--New York--Drama.
Dead--Drama.
Death, Apparent--Drama.
Hell's Kitchen (New York, N.Y.)--Drama.
Coffins--New York (State)--New York--Drama.
Mourning customs--New York (State)--New York--Drama.
Drinking of alcoholic beverages--New York (State)--New York--Drama.
Beer--New York (State)--New York--Drama.
Silent films.
Comedies.
Vaudeville.
Shorts.
RELATED NAMES
Marvin, Arthur W., 1861-1911, camera.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress)