Doubles for Darwin - 1924

American movie. A famished Felix reads an advertisement telling of a large reward for anyone that can give proof for the theory of evolution. He hurries to South Africa via Transatlantic Cable and interacts with the local animals. He angers a troop of monkeys by telling them why he's there (they're offended he would suggest they could be related to humans) and they chase him back through the cable to America.
Felix is starving to death when he notices a newspaper ad offering a large reward for anyone who can prove Darwin's theory that man comes from monkeys. When Felix heads off to find the answer in South Africa I kept waiting for something racial to happen but it never did, which was pretty shocking considering when this film was made. On the whole, there really isn't too many laughs here and in fact not too much happens throughout the running time. The best scene in the film is one where Felix finds a "family tree" of monkeys and asks them if they are related to humans. The old style animation might be tough for some viewers to take but I've always found it quite charming.

Felix the Cat in Hollywood - 1923

American movie. Felix the Cat was the first animated superstar, and these early shorts reveal the source of the character's phenomenal popularity. Animator Otto Messmer created Felix for "Feline Follies," a one-shot cartoon designed to fill a gap in an installment of the Paramount Screen Magazine. Messmer had learned how to use mime and expressions by studying the films of Charlie Chaplin, and even in his relatively crude debut film, Felix seems alive.
Felix decides to make his way to Hollywood, but has no money. The owner of a failing shoe store promises Felix $500 if he can help bring in new business, which Felix ingeniously manages to do, but the owner stiffs him out of the money. Felix finds a way to get to Hollywood, anyway, and while there meets up with the famous stars of the day, like Charlie Chaplin and Ben Turpin.
Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan's Felix the Cat was the first widely popular cartoon character in film history. In this one, there's a gag involving gum and shoes at the beginning, and Felix transforms himself into the likeness of handbag to travel to Hollywood, which is rather representative of the fantastic nature of the Felix cartoons. In Hollywood, Felix meets his peers, including Charlie Chaplin, who some say is the basis for much of Felix, and who Messmer caricaturized in another animation series. Felix also meets caricatures of Ben Turpin, William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille and President of the Motion Picture Association of America, Will Hays, who others say was the basis for the next big cartoon star, Mickey Mouse. 'Felix in Hollywood' is one of the earliest screen efforts at caricaturizing live-action movie stars, something Looney Tunes are now famous for. Additionally, as Disney would similarly capitalize on later creations, the image of Felix was marketed extensively, appearing on merchandise and in newspaper comic strips.

Une Noce En Bretagne (1908, France)

L'heritage de La Vieille Fille (1910, France)

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.
Between 1900 and 1907, Zecca directed or supervised hundreds of Pathé films. After Pathé bought the rights to Star films, Zecca started editing George Melies' films. He also acted, produced, and on occasion wrote films. He co-directed La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (1905), which with a length of 44 minutes was one of the first feature-length films about Jesus.

An Animated Luncheon - 1900

American movie. A short film from The Edison Manufacturing Company from 1900. The scene takes place in a fashionable cafe. A well dressed couple enter, and after a careful perusal of the menu, conclude on an order of boiled eggs and Welsh rarebit. The obliging waiter delivers the order. The guests break open the eggs, and two beautiful white chickens fly across the room. The diners then perform a similar trick with the Welsh rarebit just served, and two beautiful snow white rabbits hop from the dish and are seen kicking and squirming as they are lifted to the floor. It was all a joke, but the waiter is not on. Your audience will catch on, for it is a good, lively subject, full of action.

Barcelone, Parc au Crépuscule (1904, France-Spain)

Création de la Serpentine (1908, France)

Fourteen years earlier, Thomas Edison's company had filmed the Serpentine dance -- a woman in a flowing road, waving arms around, producing pretty geometric patterns -- as the entire point of SERPENTINE DANCE. But the movies had moved on, and in this movie, Segundo de Chomon uses it as a point of grammar in this rather confused, although interesting film. We get scenery, with a fiddler playing as 18th century patrons do a minuet; we get some Melies moments as the devil appears, makes the dancers vanish and takes the fiddler to pandemonium, where they produce an entire corps de ballet doing the serpentine dance. It's quite lovely.
But it's clear that De Chomon was trying to integrate these elements and produce a story, using these bits as grammatical devices. And the story is a bit muddled. Is dance the product of the devil? Are the dancers imps tempting the audience into evil?

L'insaisissable Pickpocket - 1908

Country: France
Here's yet another fine trick film made possible by the camera-work of Segundo de Chomon, the man to whom Pathe turned whenever they wanted to take a chunk of Georges Melies' market away. Here he does Melies one better in a film that was much copied.
It's a film in which a pickpocket constantly escapes the flics, and the technique for the camera tricks is fairly obviously: stop the camera, remove the actor, have the other actors come on and start the camera again. Still,l the variations are numerous and keep you interested in how he's going to do it this time and, more interesting from a technical viewpoint, there are several scenes that were shot on site -- not in the studio, where people like Melies had all the factors under control.

Le Miroir Magique (1908, France)

Rescued by Rover - 1905

Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
The film opens with Rover, a collie playing with a child in front of a fireplace. Later that day, the baby is taken out in a pram by her nurse. The nurse refuses to aid a beggar woman, and is then distracted upon meeting a soldier. While talking to the soldier, she pays no attention to the baby, and the beggar woman approaches from behind and snatches the sleeping child.
In the next scene, the nurse confesses to the mother that the child has been lost. Rover, also sitting in the room, listens before jumping through the window and racing down the street, going around a corner and across a river. The dog makes its way to a slum and barges through each and every door; he finds the right one and enters. In an attic, the beggar woman is removing the clothing from the child; the dog enters and is driven off by the beggar.
The dog leaves the house and swims back across the river, down the street and into its master and mistress's home. In a study, the child's father is sitting; Rover enters and pleads with him to follow. They leave, with the man following the dog across the river in a boat to the slums. They enter the room where the child is hidden, and the father quickly takes the child from the beggar woman and leaves with the dog. Upon their return home, the child is placed in the arms of the mother, while Rover prances happily around them.