Cinematic Era: 1906 Vintage

A farmer disowns his son when the boy gets a girl pregnant, but his heart softens when he sees his grandchild.

This Walter G. Chase film about epileptic seizures was photographed from a single camera position against a backdrop of dark canvas.

A poor boy is mistreated by his stepmother when his father isn't present.

Misadventures

Video photage of a military maneuver in Östergötland, Sweden.

One of the earliest Mexican feature-length documentary

TR became the first President in office to visit a foreign country while on an inspection tour of the Panama Canal. On November 15, 1906, there are views of TR and Manuel Amador Guerrero, first President of Panama, and two unidentified men arriving and standing on a platform on the steps of the Cathedral in Panama City; medium shot of two women arriving at the ceremony, woman on the right may be Edith Roosevelt; long shot of President Amador Guerrero delivering welcoming address as dignitaries look on; TR then speaks.

Among the Sami people.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves at a soiree given by Madame X. A young man who hopes to win the hand of an heiress has a miserable expression on his face because a flea is in his pants. He goes out on the balcony and removes his pants to shake them out, but they accidentally fall into the street.

A young man is sent away to law school in Paris. He enjoys himself until his parents come to visit and end his fun.

A housewife is particularly determined to get her cooking knife sharpened by a travelling grinder, terrifying her neighbors and assorted pedestrians as she chases the man down the street while waving the weapon

Biograph's reconstitution of the 1905 eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy.

After the San Francisco Earthquake knocked the city out, and the fires did more damage, many of the refugees from the devastated area settled in a tent city in Jefferson Square. Here are some images from that site.

When his wife gives to the ragman a pair of tan trousers in which all his money is kept, a man proceeds to rip the trousers off everyone he meets.

A man plays with three young women at the beach while his wife is alseep.

This Lubin actuality of the aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake begins with a group of men, pans to the left, and the people vanish, leaving only the shattered landscape.

Susan drinks her employers wine and has trouble serving them coffee.

The ramshackle-looking train on the single-track line pulls into the station, just in front of the siding. People clumb down and go on their ways.

A view of Waikiki in 1906.

A static shot of crowded trams returning people from an unknown sporting event.

Cast fishing in Hilo.

When his woman walks out on him, the clown suffers from hallucinations, imagining various people and situations in his misery.

"Alice Guy-Blaché liked Feuillade's scripts, and one of them, Le coup de vent, was filmed by Etienne Armaud in 1905. Two years later, Alice left Paris to follow her husband, who had just taken over the Berlin office of Gaumont, and she persuaded Gaumont to let Feuillade replace her. From 1907 he was in charge of hiring directors, buying scripts, choosing stars and at the same time directing his own films." From Decades Never Start on Time: A Richard Roud Anthology

t's one of those pageants from history, in which Roman centurions fight caveman with halberds, Queen Elizabeth arrives in a carriage, and another queen gets her head chopped off while maidens in long, white gowns and crowns of daisies dance o'er the greensward. It looks, in short, like a Society for Creative Anachronism event, with someone footing the bill so all the Tower Warders' uniforms look the same.

This movie chronicling the visit of Frederick VIII to the city of Aarhus.

A short film of the tale of Mother Holly.

An army of kitchen maids go on strike and take down all the men who come in their path.

An artist watches as musical instruments come to life and St. Cecile appears. Segundo de Chomón's as director is speculative.

A comedic short by Gaumont.

Depicts the exit of the President of the Republic Tomás Estrada Palma from the Presidential Palace, after giving the government to the Secretary of War of the United States, William H. Taft. This was the start of the second US intervention on the island.

Part of BFI collection "Tales From the Shipyard".

An old man, bell ringer at Notre Dame de Paris, disowns his daughter who has an affair with a young frivolous gentleman.

This Walter G. Chase film about epileptic seizures was photographed from a single camera position against a backdrop of dark canvas.

This Walter G. Chase film about epileptic seizures was photographed from a single camera position against a backdrop of dark canvas.

A family sends a man out for some bread. Instead, he seems to be trying to find every drink in Paris. Another man goes out after him, but does the same. They both return, utterly drunk.

A film from the UK based Mitchell & Kenyon.

The effects of lightning.

A group of young men and women are bathing in a lake when a park policeman interrupts their fun. He falls in the lake and the girls ride off on their bicycles.

A Pierrot and Harlequin clown act with a ball. Animated by Aleksandr Shiryayev sometime between 1906-1909.

Herring fishing in Bohuslän, Sweden, as caught on camera in January 1906.

View taken from the deck of a tourist boat as it sets out on the river, showing images of the Falls as the ship and its passengers travel down the gorge towards the deadly whirlpool.

Alexander Shiryaev created “The Fool’s Dance” in Marius Petipa’s 1896 revival of the ballet “Mlada”, with music by Ludwig Minkus, at the Mariinsky Theatre. His innovation of combining high leaps with the characteristic squatting step, prisyadka, was so dangerous that Petipa turned his back during Shiryaev’s solo, and in fact he broke his fibula while performing it in London in 1912.

French silent film directed by Georges Méliès, considered lost.

French silent film by Georges Méliès, considered lost.

Mlle. Consoli does a bunch of jetes, surrounded by other ballerinas. Then they surround her, and when she next appears, she is standing en point on a star, with the other ballerinas supporting her with ribbons.

A hunter with his leg stuck in a wolf trap sends his young son for help – unfortunately the boy is easily distracted and loses track of his mission.

Butterfly chase.

Spanish short documentary about King Alfonso XII's return from his voyage to La Abufera (Valencia).

A hunter buys a hare at a butcher's shop. He falls asleep in a train compartment. A woman riding with him wants to take the hare so she undresses him.

While on a walk, the six soldiers' wives are kidnapped by six officers. After recovering their wives, the soliders are punished for three days by the officers.

A drunk crawls into a barrel. Some boys push the barrel into the street, where it rolls hither and yon for five minutes of screen time, doubtless with the same scientific curiosity of people observing the old woman who swallowed a fly; we don't know why either started the whole process.

Following an argument, the wife returns to her mother. The mother-in-law tries to make them divorce, but they reconcile in the end.

Riders at a cavalry school take the horses through their paces, jumping over fences and walls, descending steep slopes, and fording streams. Some horses balk, and riders occasionally fall off their steeds.

A huge throng of spectators watches a car race.

Views and pans among the ruins of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire.

This one-reel documentary is pretty much what it says in the title. Cavalrymen ride their horses, first over low hedges, then over increasingly rough terrain, until by the end they are sliding down hills to cross a stream and going into caves. The horses don't seem terribly anixous to do these things. Occasionally a rider falls off and the horse walks away, as if to say "See! I told you this wasn't a good idea."

Crooks in an armored car-- the modern-day pirates-- trespass, murder and rob other motorists while sailing the roadways. Able to traverse small bodies of water in their craft, they evade police capture... for a time.