Cinematic Era: 1907 Vintage

Norway's first film, a silent film about a fisherman and his son. The son falls in the water while they are working and disappears in the depths.

The first adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

Behind-the-scenes footage showing Alice Guy directing an early sound film.

A boy spreads glue all over town.

Chollie and George compete for a young woman's affection, using trickery and sabotage.

Many demonstrations of the art of Jiu Jitsu are given, and as evidence that this is not a passing fad intended only for the amusement of the public there is illustrated in very thrilling manner how several footpads follow two girls and then in a deserted section of the road make an attack, which is successfully foiled and the perpetrators taken into custody. Splendid action and good photographic quality. (Gaumont catalogue)

No prints of the film have been preserved so the film can be considered a lost film. The original screenplay has also been lost. However, some plot descriptions are still known based on contemporary newspaper advertisements of the film. As the name would indicate, the film tells about two local men who are making moonshine in the woods. A customer comes to them, and while sampling the product they start a game of cards, which eventually leads to a fight. While the fight is going on, the local police shows up and arrests the makers while the customer manages to escape.(Wikipedia)

The Princess of Illyria rejects all suitors, but suddenly begins to take an interest in a wandering pauper roaming the vicinity of the royal castle. It is none other than the Prince of Denmark and his friend, Kasper Røghat. By means of a magic toy, rattle and copper kettle, the disguised prince manages to secure himself a kiss and a night in the princess’s chamber. Kasper Røghat makes sure that the king is informed of the ‘affair’, causing the princess to be thrown out of the kingdom. She accordingly has to set out for Denmark, heading for a life as the wife of a pauper. Will this fairy tale have a happy end? (stumfilm.dk)

During the Paris Commune, a boy runs across trouble at the barricade. The film is now attributed to Alice Guy-Blaché by the Gaumont company, although there is some debate about whether it was directed by Étienne Arnaud.

The film, a parody of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, follows a fisherman, Yves, who dreams of traveling by submarine to the bottom of the ocean, where he encounters both realistic and fanciful sea creatures, including a chorus of naiads played by dancers from the Théâtre du Châtelet. Méliès's design for the film includes cut-out sea animals patterned after Alphonse de Neuville's illustrations for Verne's novel.

A boy breaks his sister's doll and it mends, grows, tears him up and eats him.

A little girl runs away from the maid in charge of her care and, during her escapade, she will arrest two thugs, prevent a blind man from drowning, and save some drunks from being run over by a train. According to Etienne Arnaud's own notes, he filmed this short on the 18th and 19th of July, 1907. Alice Guy, who is mistakenly attributed to have directed it, had been living in the United States long before those dates.

A woman goes to the dentist for a toothache and is given gas. On her way home on the subway she can't stop laughing, and every other passenger catches the laughter from her.

A family troupe of acrobats, made up to appear Japanese, perform various unbelievable stunts in front of the camera, achieved through a trick of the camera.

In this film, Méliès concocts a combination fairy- and morality tale about the foolishness of trying to look too deeply into the workings of an unstable and inscrutable universe. At a medieval school, an old astronomer begins to teach a class of young men, all armed with telescopes, about the art of scrutinising an imminent eclipse. When a mechanical clock strikes twelve, all the young men rush to the windows and fix their telescopes on the heavens.

A magical woman and her magical eggs.

"Le Pied de Mouton" is an adaptation of an old French stage play titled "The Talisman" written by Alphonse Martainville and César Ribié. The atmosphere is hilarious, oneiric and delicious. The film tells the story of Gusman and Léonora, two lovers who must deal with many spells and troubles in order to preserve their love. The tale is full of princes and princesses, damsels in distress, good witches and wicked lords and is an amazing piece of work.

This short burlesque film presents an anthropomorphic pig in elegant dress flirting and dancing with a woman, before being humiliated and compelled to perform for her amusement. The film is a screen adaptation of "Le cochon mondain," a successful Paris music-hall act, likely performed by its creator Odéo using the same custom-designed costume.

The story of the life and passion of Jesus Christ, from the proclamation of his birth to his ascension into heaven.

The plot follows King Edward VII and President Armand Fallières dreaming of building a tunnel under the English Channel.

A traveler stays the night at a rural inn, but gets no rest as he is tormented by various spectres and mysterious happenings.

A mix of spectacle, animation and dance, the film reveals an early delight in the potential for creative fun with film form. Its director, Walter R. Booth had been described as making British films which attempted to out-Méliès Méliès.

John, who loves the bottle a little too much, is one of a group of sightseers. Too drunk to follow the party, the reeling drunkard remains on the site of a ruin where he starts having hallucinations.

Vesta Victoria Sings 'Poor John'.

A dramatic short.

A group of travellers go into a house for protection. Little do they know, it is filled with ghosts who make unusual things happen to them.

A boy in a cadet's uniform paints a statement on the top of the frame and then tips his cap to the audience. Also known as "Matsumoto fragment".

Four Arab men in white burnouses, two women in grey, and one female cook in striped burnous, are sitting in front of a cave in a forest path.

The story centers on a gregarious but rather undependable man whose attentions to a young gypsy woman lead to complications for them both.

Incomplete film from 1907

An extremely clumsy man tries to clean a woman's house with disastrous results.

A nicely-dressed man is riding on a bicycle. When he parks it a hobo quickly steals it, but he is clearly new at riding. He cannot manage to steer in a straight line, and it is not long before he becomes quite a hazard to pedestrians and to others in his path.

After Lucinda do Carmo is abducted from a theatre, the police are on the case. This film is lost.

Jim, a robber, is in love with the chief’s bride Clara, who firmly rejects his many advances. In revenge, he snitches on the entire gang of robbers to the police, who immediately imprison the chief and his men. Clara kills the treacherous Jim and sets out to free her lover from prison. (Stumfilm.dk)

A darkey finds it impossible to keep his feet still whenever he hears the sound of music. Sam is enticed from his home by hearing the sound of mouth harps played by two of his friends; out of the window he comes. He then gets a job to carry a trunk, an organ-grinder starts his feet a-going; he gets a job as waiter, the orchestra does the balance. Then he becomes a porter, the Dutch band finishes him with this position; then a barber, an artist's model and other positions, from all of which he is promptly fired because he can't keep his feet still when the strains of music float in the air.

The interior of a trolley car. A menagerie of passengers notices a foul odour, and pinpoint the source of the stench at a cheese saleswoman. The gendarmerie removes her from the trolley and drags her to the precinct.

As a result of a stagecoach hold-up and other crimes, Buck Brady has become known locally as the "King of Bandits". The sheriff posts a $1000 reward for Brady, dead or alive. Soon a full-scale effort is underway to capture the bandit king.

A demonic magician attempts to perform his act in a strange grotto, but is confronted by a Good Spirit who opposes him.

The town-crier summons the inhabitants of the town and they read a manifesto which is posted on a wall announcing the fact that at 4 o'clock on that day the Lord Mayor will receive bids for the building of a town clock.

This is a compact telling of the Cinderella fairy tale and the film is elaborately staged.

A combination of the story of Goldlocks and the Three Bears with the true story of how Teddy Roosevelt spared a bear cub after killing its mother while hunting, an event which led to the popularization of the teddy bear. Goldilocks goes to sleep in the bears' home after watching six teddy bears dance and do acrobatics, viewing them through a knothole in the wall. When she is awoken by the returning bear family, they give chase through the woods, but she runs to the aid of the Old Rough Rider, who saves her.

Chronophone film performed by Vesta Tilley, now lost.

The first feature-length motion picture produced in Europe, running 90 minutes. Directed by Michel Carré, from his own three-act stage pantomime, The Prodigal Son. The film was basically an unmodified filmed record of his play. Filmed at the Gaumont Film Company studios in May 1907.

Dramatization of the real-life shooting of Stanford White by Harry K. Thaw.

The legend of Ali Baba and the forty thieves: Ali Baba discovers a hidden cave where a band of thieves have stored their enormous treasure. Cassim also learns about the cave, but he is caught by the thieves and put to death. Knowing that their secret has been found out, the thieves devise a trick in an attempt to kill Ali Baba and anyone else who might know about their hiding place.

As a young couple are courting, they are rudely interrupted and split up. The man is seized and is turned over to a gang of toughs who want to hang him. Though she is greatly outnumbered, the young woman wastes no time in making a determined effort to rescue him.

An impecunious chap is unable to pay his rent, whereupon he is ejected, but all his furniture is retained and he is allowed to remove only his rolling bed. Pulling this a few blocks, he is exhausted and lies down on the bed to rest. He is soon the center of attraction, and the crowd continues to gather, when the police order him away, and as he refuses to move he is started off by the officers, who guide him for a time, but are forcibly deterred by indignant citizens from further interference. The impecunious man and his bed, which gains momentum as it runs down the inclines, cause much excitement en route, and finally arrive at the business center, where it comes to a stop alongside the walk. Our friend has purloined a fur coat and an auto horn on his tour, and now presents a modern chauffeur. (Gaumont catalogue)

Presentation of horses and cows.

This film from George Melies is sadly one that's only available in fragments. The film starts off with a title card stating that a drunk man has just thrown his family out a window. We see a couple of them landing on the ground and then we go back to the room where the drunk is now trying to kill himself.

A magician is surprised when he attempts to transform a beetle.

A piano entices anyone who comes near.

Daniel Boone is captured by Indians when he tries to rescue his abducted daughter.

Despite what you may read on IMDb and elsewhere, Enrico Caruso does not appear in this film though it was mimed to a recording by Caruso. Mendel’s system utilized prerecorded commercial recordings of famous artists lip-synched by look-alike actors during film shooting. The music is the sextet Chi mi frena in tal momento from Act Two of Gaetano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor which premiered in 1835.

Scenes of Theodore Roosevelt at the Jamestown Exposition in Norfolk, Virginia, in April and June, 1907, participating in Jamestown's tercentennial celebration on April 26, its opening day, and later on Georgia Day, June 10.

In turn, the statues come to life, dancers like dolls, perform on a table, the women metamorphose from butterflies, and babies are born from giant flowers. These scenes are a series of tableaux which are beautifully incoherent, changing and diverse as in real life, where it is necessary to have a certain belief in metaphysics for the soul to be transported into a perpetual motion, migrating from one another and into the stars.

It is love at first sight when Armand Duval meets the courtisan Marguerite. They move in together and live happily until Armands father secretly pays Marguerite a visit to tell her that her questionable reputation has put Armand's entire family in disrepute. She sacrifices herself and leaves Armand, who – in the belief that she left of her own free will – embitters by grief and anger. But destiny wants them to meet again. (stumfilm.dk)

This short film consists of a crazy old colonel being asked to entertain party guests about his exploits of daring. However, being a totally insane old coot, he runs amok acting out his war-time heroics--smashing and throwing everything in the room!

In front of a round tent, a pasha is sitting on the grass; to the right of the tent's door, covered with a patterned blanket, is a flagpole - on top of which is an 8-pointed star [Saturn-Film's logo]. The pasha claps hands, and a servant comes to his bid. The lord is going to smoke from his water-pipe while he buys some new slave girls. The servant calls the seller and his two henchmen, who bring forth four girls in patterned burnooses.

With a beautifully painted Arabian backdrop and some vivid colours, this is one of the more visually impressive pieces.

A peddler of "the best glue" sets up his outdoor stall. A crowd gathers for a demonstration. As he gives his pitch, two observant cops decide drive off his customers and close him down, much to his fury. He seeks revenge as they sit on a park bench.