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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.
Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of firemen responding to a house fire. They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from the burning house. But wait, she tells them of her child yet asleep in the burning bedroom...
This is the first movie version of the famous story. Alice dozes in a garden, awakened by a dithering white rabbit in waistcoat with pocket watch. She follows him down a hole and finds herself in a hall of many doors.
The leader of a marching band demonstrates an unusual way of writing music.
A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.
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.
This is a film taken of the execution of Topsy, an elephant employed to help build Luna Park on Coney Island.
A simple scene of two rather flamboyantly-dressed Edwardian children attempting to feed a spoonful of medicine to a sick kitten. The film is important for being one of the earliest films to cut to a close-up, then back again to the same medium shot as before.
An Egyptian prince has lost his beloved wife and he has sought a dervish who dwells at the base of the sphinx.
Pluto, having seen the earth, comes back home amazed at the success of that well-known dance, the "cake-walk." He has brought back with him two noted well-known dancers, who start their favorite dance amidst the flames.
A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella.
Mary Jane tries to light the oven. When she's unsuccessful, she plays around, getting black boot polish on her face. She mugs before a mirror. Then, it's back to work. When the stove still won't light, she pours in paraffin, winks at the camera, and lights a match. Kaboom! Is there any rest for the foolish, even in the grave?
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Two impish clowns construct a magic lantern. They prop it up at an angle, and use it to project pictures onto a wall. When the picture show ends, they open up the lantern to reveal a group of dancing girls inside - and this is only the first of the indications that this lantern really is magical.
A stationary camera looks on as two dapper gents play a game of chess. One drinks and smokes, and when he looks away, his opponent moves two pieces. A fight ensues, first with the squirting of a seltzer bottle, then with fisticuffs. The combatants wrestle each other to the floor and continue the fight out of the camera's view, hidden by the table. The waiter arrives to haul both of them out.
Pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès performs his cine-magic act.
Based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe: Eliza, a slave who has a young child, pleads with Tom, another slave, to escape with her. Tom does not leave, but Eliza flees with her child. After getting some help to escape the slave traders who are looking for her, she then must try to cross the icy Ohio River if she wants to be free. Meanwhile, Tom is sold from one master to another, and his fortunes vary widely.
The story of Jesus Christ, from the proclamation of his Nativity to his Ascension into heaven. Impressive staging and beautiful hand-coloring distinguish the film from its Passion-play counterparts; Its scale and dynamic crowds prelude the Italian epics to come.
Alone in his room at an inn, a lustful old man is haunted by spirits.
The scene is similar to that seen at Coney Island, where a number of shows are constantly going on.
A magician transforms a woman into a portrait of herself, then restores her to life.
An engaged couple, dressed in white, meet each other at a train station. When the train arrives, they get on board, and they enjoy the sights from the platform on the last car. The workers on the train are eager to help, and they make some special arrangements for the couple.
A traveller is shown to a room in an inn. After a brief dispute with the hostess and a porter, he is left to himself. But strange things begin to happen in his room, and before long he has created a disturbance that has everyone running to his room to find out what is going on.
The German legend of a scholar's unholy pact with the Devil would have been very familiar to most moviegoers (at least European ones), so Georges Méliès' early cinematic treatment likely got away with simply offering a fancifully illustrated late episode without the earlier narrative context (however, spoken narration provides some of the latter in this restored print). Tempted by Mephistopheles with all kinds of dancing and ethereal babes, Faust is at first excited and then terrified by the sight of various demons and monsters. The painted-set designers really went hog wild on this one, depicting the (sometimes sexy) torments of subterranean Hell with in bold terms (even when ballerinas prance in the foreground). (Dennis Harvey, Fandor)
A man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's stationary range. The cop runs after the cab, the woman dashes to the body. The cop brings back the driver; is the victim dead?
A re-telling of the classic tale of Faust in all of two minutes by French filmmaker Alice Guy.
A box of valued jewels is placed inside the tomb of Delphi. A thief breaks into the tomb and steals it, but soon the ghost of Delphi appears and puts a curse on him.
A nude couple pose in an art studio on a square rug, while the camera does a circular traveling around them; the woman has her right knee on the floor and her right arm raised in front of her face, holding the man's thighs with her right, while the man is bent forward, as if looking in the distance.
In a corner of the garden we see an ornamental fountain. An old professor comes along, looking for a nice spot where he can teach his pupils. Finding the fountain to his liking he goes after his scholars. A mysterious person who has noticed the old man, by means of a balloon, a handkerchief and a coat, constructs a peculiar figure, doing a lot of tricks at the same time.
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