Cinematic Era: 1904 Vintage

Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.

A magician conjures up a mermaid while fishing.

A fairly venturesome piece of filmmaking for the era: Based on the Jules Verne story, the film utilizes a dozen cuts, irised lenses, panning shots and vivid tints to weave an intrepid and exciting story.

A “madman” escapes prison and the torments of his warders.

Faust and his love Marguerite are sentenced to Hell where they are showed the torture that awaits.

A poor family in a rundown house where snow falls through the broken roof, there's no coal to heat the pathetic little stove, mother is sick, father sends daughter out to beg. Rejected by other beggars, the girl collapses in the snow…

Klingsor seeks admission to the Holy Grail. Evil summons Kundry. Herzeloid appears with the child Parsifal. Crowning of Amfortas. Wounding of Amfortas. Carrying Amfortas to his bath. Kundry brings relief to Amfortas. Parsifal reproached for killing the Swan. Kundry succumbs to Evil. Knights entering the Holy Grail. Parsifal unmoved. Klingsor summons Kundry. Parsifal enters the Magic Garden. Kundry kisses Parsifal. Parsifal calls upon the Saviour. Parsifal repulses Kundry. Klingsor hurls the Sacred Spear. Destruction of the Magic Garden. Guernemanz restores Kundry. Parsifal appears with Sacred Spear. Kundry washes Parsifal's feet. Amfortas tears open his wound. Parsifal heals Amfortas. Parsifal becomes King of the Holy Grail.

A performing magician divides into two people. The doubles then take turns doing tricks before merging back into one man.

A brief vaudeville-style demonstration of a "Dog Transformator," a machine that instantly turns dogs into sausages, and amazingly, sausages back into dogs.

This film depicts the Biblical scenes when Joseph is sold by his brothers and taken to Egypt, where he finally landed in jail. He explains to his fellow-prisoners their dreams saying one will go free while the other will hang. His predictions come true. the King has some dreams which he wanted to have explained, and he had Joseph brought before him. Joseph explained his dreams and was made Governor.

An actuality of the Brock's fireworks factory to celebrate its 40th anniversary organizes. The final shot has two flaming portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, originally presented by Brock's at the coronation in 1902. The film is a cornucopia of colors, as it was originally a hand-painted film. The 2011 restoration has tried to revive the brilliance and the impact of colors through digital reproduction. The original film archival print is at the National Cinema Museum.

Two workers leave boxes of explosives with a push cart street vendor while they visit a bar. They return drunk and accidentally drop a box of nitro powder, causing an explosion that wrecks the block and blows off the vendor’s arm. A policeman shows up to the carnage and tries to replace the vendor’s arm with a severed leg.

During a game of hide and seek, a new bride hides in a chest and remains undiscovered until a strange visitation thirty years later.

"This view represents a grand transformation scene of several tableaux, the more interesting and the more surprising in the order of their presentation." -Star catalogue

A weary clock-maker dozes off in a chair. While he is asleep, three women suddenly appear in the midst of his shop. They proceed to show the sleeping clock-maker some new kinds of clocks that they know how to make.

A man hides his valuables under his mattress before going to sleep, blissfully unaware of the two burglars on his roof.

Frenchman Count Hardup advertises for a wife. He gets more than he bargained for when women start chasing him. He's caught by an old maid.

A Japanese-set magic show. There is a lot of visual trickery on display, ending with an amazing effect using reverse footage and superimposing/projecting images on top of one another.

Opens with a woman posing on a pedestal, dressed in a white body leotard with a sash tied at her hips. Marshall continues with various feminine poses, reminiscent of classic Greek statuary, to accentuate her figure. Film cuts to Treloar posed on the bare stage without a pedestal. He wears brief leopard-skin trunks or short tunic, wrist bands, and Roman-looking laced sandals. His poses accentuate the muscular development of his upper body, particularly that of his arms, and include movements that make the muscles jump. Treloar finishes with a slight nod to the camera.

View of the Grand Canal in Venice from a boat believed to have been made in either 1901 or 1904 and as part of the series "Through Italy with the Bioscope" by George Albert Smith and Charles Urban.

This shows a prince entering upon the stage of the King's private theatre. He is about to do a few mystifying tricks for the amusement of the court.

Powerboat racing was a brand-new sport in 1904. Selwyn Edge initially won the race off Cowes (Isle of Wight) in the British-made Napier Minor as a substitute for the Napier II, but was later disqualified. Clearly the filmmakers thought at the time that they were filming the victor.

The background of this picture represents a scene along the beautiful river Seine in Paris. A gentleman enters, and taking a blackboard from the side of the picture, he draws on it a sketch of a novelist. Then, standing in the centre, he causes the living features of his sketch to appear in the place of his own, which is utterly devoid of whiskers. The change is made so mysteriously that the eye cannot notice it until one sees quite another person in the place of the first. Again another sketch is shown on the board, this one being that of a miser; then an English cockney; a comic character; a French policeman, and last of all, the grinning visage of Mephistopheles. It is almost impossible to give this film a more definite description; suffice it to say that it is something entirely new in motion pictures and is sure to please. (Méliès Catalog)

A Chinese conjurer stands next to a table, it becomes two tables. A fan becomes a parasol, lanterns appear and disappear. The conjurer spins the open parasol in front of himself, and a dog leaps out from behind it. The dog becomes a woman, then a masked man appears. The conjurer sits them each on a box a few feet apart: suddenly the woman and man have changed places. The disappearing and the transfers continue in front of a simple backdrop.

A barmaid plies a swell with smiles and with cherries from a box that's just been delivered. When she refuses a cherry to a roughly-dressed tradesman who runs a tab at the bar, he pays off his debt in a huff, using all his week's pay. He then storms penniless and without provisions into his ill-furnished house where his wife and two children, ill-clad and ill-fed, cower. Is there any hope for him and for his family? If he does realize how low he's sunk, what help is there to lift him up? Will the family ever know the taste of cherries?

The adventures of an inattentive man who can't look away from his book.

A married couple faces the demands of what Theodore Roosevelt called 'the strenuous life'.

A high board fence is shown covered with theatrical posters. The one in the center shows the head and shoulders of a pretty girl. An old farmer and his wife are strolling along, the old gentleman being a little ahead. He looks at the picture of the girl and fancies he sees the eyes winking at him. He puts on his glasses to make sure that he is not dreaming, when the girl leans forward with an expression as if inviting him to have a kiss. (Biograph Catalog)

A Jew who mocked Jesus on the cross is visited by a devil and an angel.

A magic show.

Buster Brown creater R.F. Outcault sketches his creation. Part of the Buster Brown series for Edison film studio.

Scene III of the Buster Brown Series. Shows a bargain counter in a department store and a large gathering of women examining goods. It is a special sale, and a great deal of interest is shown by the ladies, who jostle and crowd each other to secure the choicest bargains. Mrs. Brown enters, accompanied by Buster and Tige. Mrs. Brown is unable to get near the counter and is in despair.

Salvation Army General Commissioner Edward Higgins features in the this film of a brass band parade through a village.

The stages that a caterpillar goes through, from larvae to chrysalis, to become a butterfly.

An over-the-hill American tourist has a terrible time on his European "rest cure" vacation.

A pump stands outside a farmhouse, just inside a picket fence. A boy comes out of the house and dresses up the pump handle and its post as a scarecrow, so that he can play a practical joke on a drunken acquaintance when he passes by. The boy then hides and waits for him, but things do not turn out quite as he planned.

A staged crash between two outmoded locomotives given to the Edison Co. by the Pennsylvania Railroad for the express purpose of destroying them.

A medieval magician performs a magic show involving a long ornate trunk in which he makes his assistants appear, disappear, and transform into other people.

A fire fighting demonstration in Luna Park, Coney Island. on August 15, 1904.

The Lillywhites take on the Wolves at Deepdale, watched by a large crowd and the club mascot.

The heir of a rich family puts up a notice, where he says he is looking for a wife. As a result, he will soon find himself fleeing from a dozen women.

A tramp kills a generous woman. In revenge, her husband tracks down and lynches the tramp.

Belgradian parades and everyday street scenes.

An artist is painting a sunrise at sea. After a few finishing touches he stands back and admires the painting. The sun immediately commences to rise. From all appearances it becomes very warm as the sun rises, and the artist is seen to throw open the window and fan himself furiously. The climax is reached when the artist rushes from the room and returns with a large tub of water and a pair of tongs. Seizing the sun as it soars in the air he plunges it into the tub, causing a great cloud of steam to rise.

Despite his younger sister's remonstrances, a precocious schoolboy wants to smoke a cigarette he stole from his father. But he is soon punished for his audacity by a stomach cramp that intensifies until it culminates in terrible nausea and its inevitable consequence.

Several dogs copiously "water" a rose on a lawn. A young lover arrives, delicately picks the flower and offers it to his beloved.

A camera moving forward on an overhead crane gives a traveling view of men working on machinery. Carts carrying parts and pieces of machinery pass by on rails; cranes lift machinery; and men perform their various duties, including hammering objects. (Library of Congress)

With a tree-lined river bank dominating the top and back of the frame, the Charles River flows toward a stationary camera. A flotilla of canoes passes by. Some have one occupant, some two, a few three or four. Some men wear ties, a few wear boaters. Only a handful of the canoes have more than one paddler. None go quickly. There are more than 40 canoes packed close together. Off camera, down left, they seem to make a circle and head back to enter the frame from the left.

"Scene opens showing interior of woods in India. In the centre is displayed a native altar of worship. The high priest enters, and at his command enter two native slaves, whom he commands to remove the pedestal in the centre of the alter. In its place he places an urn; with a few mysterious passes he causes flames to issue forth, to the consternation of his servants. He then throws a magic powder into the flames, and there appears, after the explosion, a beautiful vision of Siva the Invisible, who mysteriously ascends to the centre of the altar; and, before they can admire her beauty, she fades away into space. Not to be outdone, the priest makes a few more passes, and gradually there appears in the place of Siva a Hindoo princess. Both the priest and the servants fall on their knees to worship her. She immediately takes her place on the pedestal, and to the alarm of all turns to the stone statue of Buddah, the Hindoo God. They flee in terror."

From what appears to be a furnace, a large, glowing block is lifted with the help of a crane over to a table by a group of men. A hammer comes from above and pounds down on the block repeatedly as the men turn the block several times so that it will acquire a certain shape.

Georges Melies the magician. Melies removes his own head, puts it in a glass box on a stool, then grows another one. Melies lights up a cigarette and blows smoke at his old head. The head gets payback by levitating above Melies and spewing water on him.

A gang of criminals plans and executes the robbery of a bank in Philadelphia. However, the police are alerted and a chase through the city's streets ensues.

Almost 200 women file by a device on the wall from which they take their time checks. A man runs half-way across the screen at the end of the film.

A film, very amusing, showing a countryman with a most tempting dinner before him, which he is unable to touch. The table, the dishes and the chairs change about continually. Finally the waiter who has served the dinner draws the cover with a quick jerk, and the whole affair flies into the air and bursts into pieces to the great astonishment of the unfortunate diner.

Two young girls in Ukrainian costume perform a dance near a palm tree in a garden.

An abridged story of the triumphs and trials of Christopher Columbus, told in eight scenes.

During a strike, several workers are killed in a confrontation. The wife of one of them kills the factory owner. At her trial, the owner's son asks for mercy, knowing that his father was wrong. Because of that the wife is freed.

An impoverished fisherman, not earning enough to support his wife and daughter, prays for help before an icon of the Virgin Mary. After trying to commit suicide, his prayer get answered.

A prefect is converted to Christianity and dies in the arena with his lover.

A remake of Edwin S. Porter's film of the same title.