Cinematic Era: 1901 Vintage

A chemist carries out a bizarre experiment with his own head.

A political quarrel between two men that ends in laughter.

A young woman becomes the eighth wife of the wealthy Bluebeard, whose first seven wives have died under mysterious circumstances.

Firefighters ring for help, and here comes the ladder cart; they hitch a horse to it. A second horse-drawn truck joins the first, and they head down the street to a house fire. Inside a man sleeps, he awakes amidst flames and throws himself back on the bed. In comes a firefighter, hosing down the blaze. He carries out the victim, down a ladder to safety. Other firefighters enter the house to save belongings, and out comes one with a baby. The saved man rejoices, but it's not over yet.

A man, objecting to being filmed, comes closer and closer to the camera lens until his mouth is all we see. Then he opens wide and swallows camera and cinematographer. He steps back, chews, and grins.

A great feature of the Pan-American Exposition, as unanimously conceded by all visitors, was the electric illumination of the Exposition grounds at night. After a great deal of experimenting and patience, we succeeded in securing an excellent picture of the buildings at the Pan-American as they appeared when lighted up at night.

A young man's telephone call to his sweetheart is intercepted by her father, who beats him with his umbrella.

Filmed in 35mm and in black and white, this short silent film was produced by the English film pioneer R. W. Paul, and directed by Walter R. Booth and was filmed at Paul's Animatograph Works. It was released in November 1901. As was common in cinema's early days, the filmmakers chose to adapt an already well-known story, in this case A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, in the belief that the audience's familiarity with the story would result in the need for fewer intertitles. It was presented in 'Twelve Tableaux' or scenes.

Girl gives spoonful of milk to kitten. (Cut-in close-up) [The British Film Catalogue]

Filmed at the second inauguration of William McKinley on March 4, 1901, this short captures the president taking the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol. Although Thomas Edison has sometimes been mistakenly named as director, he was never credited as director on any films; the actual director of this short is unknown.

At the beginning of the scene Romeo in his gondola sings to Juliet a sentimental song, then goes away. Hardly has he departed when the colonnade falls to pieces, disclosing the devil. Juliet, frightened, runs to the window and calls Romeo. The latter attempts to enter and protect his fiancée, but at a gesture from the devil the window is instantly covered with a grating and Romeo makes frantic efforts to break it. The devil begins to dance a wild dance before Juliet, who is beside herself from terror. The devil gradually becomes the size of a giant (a novel effect). Juliet implores the statue of Madonna, which becomes animated, descends from its pedestal, and stretching out its arms orders the devil to disappear. (Méliès Catalog)

An artist draws the head of a pretty girl, takes the drawing off the paper and places it on a small table, turning the image into the head of a real woman. He then continuous drawing the lady, one body part after the other.

Some naughty scenes from a balcony.

A scene from Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Despite the common belief, this is NOT the world's first Dickens' adaptation in cinema.

Our presidential hunter runs across the landscape and falls down in the snow, gets up with his rifle, and gazes upward at a treed animal which isn't in the camera's view. He fires a shot into the tree, then leaps on the ground to grab the fallen prey, a domestic cat, finishing it off with wild blows of his hunting knife while his companions, a photographer and a press agent, record the event that will be reported far and wide as a manly moment. Teddy then rides out of the forest followed by two companions afoot, never mind that they all originally arrived afoot. Perhaps it was funnier in its day than it is now, but apparently shooting cats was regarded as funny in those days. The larger point was to use a minor whimsy as a political criticism, in this case of Teddy Roosevelt's easy manipulations of the press. It was based on two frames of a political cartoon that had appeared in the paper a mere week before the film was made.

In the artist's studio, he asleep in his chair. A large old fashioned clock opens and a young lady comes out and awaking the artist, requests him to paint her picture. While the artist is executing the work a clown comes from the clock, takes in the situation and begins to make love to the lady. The artist detects him and compels him to desist his love making. He continues to paint. The clown becomes interested and asks the artist to allow him to paint the picture, and begins smearing a whitewash brush over the canvas, and a most perfect image of the young lady appears. The image then steps down from the frame, joins the young lady in the studio, and the figures, each a perfect counterpart of the other begin to dance to the great astonishment of the artist. The clown waves his hand causing the figures of the two girls to merge into one. The artist then assumes his seat and awakens in shock. The film was a Vitagraph production, but later acquired and copyrighted by the Edison Company.

This film recreates the arrest of Thomas Goudie, a bank employee who embezzled £170,000 to pay gambling debts, using the real locations. It shows the exterior of the house where he was hiding during a nationwide manhunt and re-enacts scenes of the landlady informing on him and his arrest. The film has no explanatory titles, so presumably audiences would have known, or were told, the story.

On the roof of an ancient palace appear a young Knight and his lady. While they are making love an ugly old witch appears and is rather troublesome. The Knight commands her to leave, and when he is about to force her away she sits on her broom and rises to the moon. After disappearing she causes various hob-goblins to haunt the pair, the last of them stealing away the lady while the Knight's back is turned. The Knight, frantic with grief, is suddenly confronted by a Fairy, who presents him with a magical sword, and tells him that he can use it to regain the young woman.

Troops play up for the camera in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.

An inventive use of slow-motion filming helps hammer home the gag as an unconvincing 'Indian chief' hopes to dissolve some trapped wind with a popular brand of indigestion powder.

Serpentine dance with stenciled rainbow coloring, in the style of Fuller. Dancer unidentified. Pathé film no. 766a.

A man tries to climb ito bed to get a night's sleep. Every time he does, the bed suddenly is someplace else and he falls on the floor.

An adaptation of the biblical story.

In 1901 people in Belfast paid their tram drivers in carrots.

A group of miners (including a sole black worker) exits the colliery gates.

A large group of boys play hockey. One of the boys has only one leg, but with the help of a crutch, skates about and puts up a very successful game.

This is a great historical event. Our cameras were stationed in the center of the Esplanade looking toward the Main Approach to the Pan-American Exposition...

A man walks down to the water's edge, takes off his clothes and prepares to go for a swim.... only to find himself fully clothed. This happens again and again.

Pathé film number 380, released as "What Happened to the Inquisitive Janitor" in the US and as "Peeping Tom" in the UK. The title "What is Seen Through a Keyhole" was given 'a posteriori' and should not be regarded as its original. As a janitor is cleaning a hotel, he decides to peek through the keyholes to observe some of the guests in their rooms. In room 8, a woman is busy making herself look more attractive, and the janitor enjoys watching her. There are also some interesting things going on in the other rooms on the floor.

An up to date idea and a great picture. The professor sits in his laboratory with his newly invented baby incubator. A mother who is anxious for the growth of her child enters, places her baby in care of the professor, who promptly places it in the incubator. An alcohol lamp is lighted under the apparatus, but the professor evidently gets his machine too hot, for in a few seconds the top is opened and the baby taken out. To the great anger of its mother it has grown about two feet in height and has long hair and a full beard. (Edison Catalog)

Certainly one of the greatest literary successes of our time. This work has been translated into every [sic] language and its sale has reached millions of copies. It is therefore an event, so to speak, which we cannot allow to escape us. To follow the book throughout would be pretentious and impossible of realization ; so we have taken out of it, and arranged in one film, those parts which are the most interesting. Pathé Catalogue U. K.

A convicted criminal dreams about his past the night before his execution.

Special effects film with a train double exposed on the negative, creating a ghostly image.

The famous acrobats in the above title appear in a marvellous acrobatic act. There are three barrels arranged on the stage. The boys, blindfolded, stand on opposite sides of the stage, and jump from one barrel into the other until they both land in the same barrel at the same time. They then jump backwards onto the stage over the two barrels. One table is then mounted upon another and the center barrel is placed on top. The brothers still blindfolded jump one each into a barrel and from them to the first to the second table and from the second table into the barrel on top of the second table. They then jump backwards onto the stage. This is pronounced by show people to be the most marvellous acrobatic feat that has ever been introduced. (Edison Catalog)

It shows a garden wall in the background. Two lovers appear and lean over the garden gate where the moon throws a shadow upon the ground. The young man invites the young lady to a settee, when the moon's face brightens into a very pronounced grin. As the pair begin love making, the moon winks one eye and then the other, and, finally, as the lovers become more interested, the moon comes down from the sky with a grin on his face as large as an old-fashioned apple pie.

This early docudrama shows Auburn Prison and recreates the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley of the United States.

Stage star Anna Held (1872-1918) riffs on her once-famous scene from the comedy Papa's Wife (1899-1901) featuring a naif getting tipsy on her first champagne, in this "photographic interview", filmed in 68mm by Frederick S. Armitage. AM&B's Picture Catalogue of 1902 pitched it as "A stunning picture of the well-known actress in the drinking scene which made such a hit in Papa's Wife. The figure is shown in bust view, making the head very large and giving a clear view of the facial expressions of the beautiful artiste." The company said that both "make hits either in the Biograph [35mm projection service] or Mutoscope" [hand-cranked peep-show viewer].

Panorama of a mountainside railroad and tunnel.

In a wizard's cavern, a series of magic tricks are performed..

On 28 January 1901 the great musician Giuseppe Verdi died from the consequences of a stroke that had struck him six days earlier. These very rare images, captured in Milan on 27 February 1901 by the operator and pioneer of Milanese cinema Italo Pacchioni, document the transfer of the Maestro's body from the Monumental Cemetery of Milan to the famous retirement home for musicians which he himself founded.

A magician does tricks with the aid of his assistant, the Human Pump.

The President of France and entourage on a pier's promenade.

Persons who have visited the "Hub," no doubt carried away with vivid recollections of Boston's famous system of Underground Transportation and this film takes the audience from the bright sunshine into the dim obscurity of the subway. The Underground stations and rows of Electric Arc lamps are plainly shown and, after traversing the tunnel for a considerable distance, the car finally emerges opposite the railroad depot.

A well-dressed, middle-aged man is enjoying a drink at a table with a pretty young woman. He flirts with her, and she seems not to mind his attentions. But is it all too good to be true?

The scene opens in the bedroom of Mr. Nation, husband of the famous Carrie Nation, the “Kansas Saloon Smasher”. Mr. Nation suddenly arises from the bed and picks up a crying infant from the cradle, and walks it up and down the floor. He suddenly steps upon a tack, becomes infuriated, and throws the baby back into the cradle…

A short film depicting a dramatized scene from the Boer War, produced by the Lancashire company Mitchell and Kenyon. The film portrays the rescue of two nurses from impending danger at the hands of Boer soldiers, thanks to the timely arrival of British troops. The filming took place on the outskirts of Blackburn.

Georgetown, 1901. A silver-mining town at 8,500 feet near the crest of the Rockies. Hooked somehow to the rear of a four-car passenger train is a camera that pans the scenery and, when the train goes around curves, looks ahead to see the engine and passenger cars: the passengers wave hundreds of white handkerchiefs out of the train's left-side windows for the benefit of the camera. The town comes into view; the tracks are above the town, so the camera looks down on dozens of modest rooftops as it pans the area. (AMB 1901, copyrighted 1903.)

Gilbert Saroni impersonates an exceedingly ugly woman who coyly flirts with her fan.

An old proprietor is startled and haunted by the strange happenings inside his curiosity shop.

A magician's hat offers many surprises.

Using a blue tint to set the scene under the sea, this is a short, surprisingly violent film where two divers fight to the death with axes over some treasure beneath the waves.

This film is difficult to classify. It opens on a scene showing a mourner with bowed head sitting in front of what appears to be a tombstone. Shortly afterwards, the face of Abraham Lincoln and then of two other presidents, Garfield and McKinley, can be seen on the monument and then they disappear. There is a figure huddled at the foot of a statue of Justice, as if asking forgiveness.

Directed by Robert W. Paul.

“The picture [shows] a number of Esquimaux picking nickels from cracks in a board with their dog whips, in which sport they are very expert. In the background will be seen one of their "Topeks," a sealskin tent in which they live during their short summer.” (Edison catalog)

Four black minstrels turn into white clowns and back again when they hit or kick each other.

A man attempts to engender a transformation of a giant worm into a butterfly.

Prominent people at a funeral.

A few days before the Christmas holiday, a large family decides to put on a home-made play as part of their holiday together. The mother writes the play, and the children practice it. When they are ready, they enact first a prologue and then the play.

An unhappy woodcutter is temped by the devil with riches and honors. They visit seven castles, as the man acquires the Seven Capital Sins these castles represent. Pioneering trick effects include multiple exposures and dissolves in this early féerie.