Cinematic Era: 1908 Vintage

1908 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès, which is currently presumed lost.

Miss Inga Berentz dresses up for the entrance. An attraction of the first rank for all admirers of the borne diva. And a dance potpourri by Inga Berentz and Axel Ringvall. A scene full of playful lewdness and irresistible comedy.

Precious footage of the 1908 Olympics shows the main venue, White City Stadium, with brief glimpses of pole vaulting, gymnastics, high jump, swimming, throwing the discus, tug of war and women’s archery.

The distressing plight of a young man who, dissatisfied with the food his wife serves him, eats horse meat, develops various equine mannerisms, and eventually lands in the hospital.

When a bully steals their ball, a kind war veteran lends the saddened children a helping hand. And a leg or two…

1908 French short silent film by Georges Méliès, which is presumed lost. No English-language release is known for this film,[1] but the translated title The Fairy Dragonfly has been used in film reference.

In this interesting picture we are given a vivid idea of the principal incidents connected with the Dreyfus case, which caused such a stir in military circles in the year of 1894. Alfred Dreyfus, an officer on the general staff, was charged with selling secrets to a foreign power. He was tried and judged guilty on flimsy evidence, and sentenced to imprisonment on Devil's Island, where he remained for eight years, until his influential friends, who took up his case in earnest, proved it was a plot formed by other officers, who subsequently confessed to having forged the documents.

Short reportage

In this picture we anticipate the probable means of navigation in the coming century. A young lady and a friend are observed entering an air-ship. The vehicle is loaded with ballast, sand bags, vegetables, etc., the passengers carrying spy-glasses. They laugh heartily, shake hands and are off...

A serpentine dancer is bathed in alternating hand-colored frames underneath an elaborate archway.

Short film about the carnival activities in Mainz, Germany.

A boy takes pictures of everything, including some embarrassing situations. When he projects the pictures on a wall for everyone to see, his father spanks him and smashes the camera.

María Rosa is a Spanish silent film directed by Juan María Codina.

Short reportage

It is often said there is honor among thieves, but not so, as we shall see in this story. Two denizens of the underworld are seen in their squalid furnished room planning a robbery. Their intended victim is known to hold at all times in his safe at home a large sum of money and a wealth of jewels. Gathering together the tools of their nefarious calling, they start off, arriving at the house shortly after the master had retired for the night.

Alexander Girardi sings the cabbage song

Early Balkan footage.

A woman falls asleep on a park bench. The Devil appears and summons an imp who takes the woman to his fantastic lair. After a nightmarish episode, the woman awakens only to promptly doze off again. Now a fairy appears who shows the woman a beautiful dreamland.

Actuality segment showing King Gustaf V’s visit to Ystad on 10 July 1908. Footage includes his arrival in a landau with white horses, interactions with local dignitaries, parade of military, crowds by the train station, and waving farewell as he departs.

Pathé's version of José Zorrilla's play, Don Juan Tenorio.

While Monsieur and his friends are making music, a fire breaks out in the apartment. The little girl is saved, but the emotion causes the mother to lose her reason. She is cured only by hearing once again the air that was played during that fatal night. The Gaumont catalogue styled the film, "Très pathétique".

Released the same week than Selig's version, they both were the first film versions of the popular play, adapted from Ellen Wood's 1861 novel.

Among the many famous 16th-century samurai who made the leap from myth and ukiyo-e to early cinema screen was sword-master Miyamoto Musashi, previously depicted in prints by Kiniyoshi Yoshitoshi and others slaying an array of grotesque creatures including giant bats, giant lizards, and the mythical tengu. This imagery informed his first screen depiction in Miyamoto Musashi Taiji No Ba, which showed him combatting the mythic white ape of the mountains.

De Chomon film from 1908. Existing film is incomplete in length.

Overview of ideas about the police on the occasion of an attack on the bourgeois by Apaches gangsters.

A good shepherdess is persecuted by an evil, tantrum-throwing princess. A good fairy decides to intervene, and dishes out quite a bit of retribution.

Short film about the carnival activities in Mainz, Germany.

A boy takes pictures of everything, including some embarrassing situations. When he projects the pictures on a wall for everyone to see, his father spanks him and smashes the camera.

"The angel in this film is a little girl who is struggling hard to keep alive her old mother, who is lying ill on a pile of rags. She tries in various piteous ways to scrape together-enough to keep her parent alive, and one scene shows her on the steps of the church, where are also gathered a number of beggars of various descriptions. As the people leave the church they pass through and give their mite as they will; in this way the girl receives a few coins and with this she purchases some refreshment for her mother. With skipping, joyful steps the little angel goes back to the hovel and bends over the form. But as she reaches down her mother suddenly falls back, and in another moment is dead. The child, dazed and taken completely by terrible surprise, quakes for a few seconds with emotion then loses her reason..." Moving Picture World, March 1908

Short reportage

A short film starring Clément Mégé.

Fairy-tale adaptation.

A woman falls asleep on a park bench. The Devil appears and summons an imp who takes the woman to his fantastic lair. After a nightmarish episode, the woman awakens only to promptly doze off again. Now a fairy appears who shows the woman a beautiful dreamland.

Silent film from Georges Méliès, presumed to be lost.

A drunkard has a vision of everything turning into bottles.

A mischievous duke comes across a drunkard in a town square, and decides to pull a practical joke. He has the drunkard carried to the ducal palace and dressed as a nobleman, where he is made to receive courtiers. A banquet is prepared for the fake nobleman, who is too far gone to understand the situation, and unusual things seem to begin occurring. When the drunkard attempts to get more to drink, the bottle magically grows to giant size and disappears, so the duke's servants bring in a large funnel and fill the drunkard up, with his stomach swelling up like a balloon to fit. The duke's doctors work to deflate him back to normal. The drunkard tries to get some sleep, but the paintings on the walls come to life, showing him all sorts of scenes of people drinking merrily.

A young lady heads to dancing classes and, telling a young boy about it, he decides to join her. Neither show any aptitude or ability and thoroughly disgusted, the dance professor grabs a huge knife, with which he severs their bodies at the waist. The dismembered limbs continue dancing away on their own, and the upper part of the dismembered bodies must give them chase.

A mythological scene with the most beautiful effect.

In this screaming comic is shown the amount of mischief that can be accomplished by one small boy. (Moving Picture World synopsis.)

Footage of a Milan carneval in 1908

Short reportage

Short reportage

Sigmund Liban sings forty second from the prologue to PAGLIACCI in this early sound film.

A tour of the city of Camagüey divided into three segments - "A visit to Camagüey", "Typical scenes", and "Farewell Camagüey".

Arrival of the Christian Slaves: The captives are brought before Nero. He chooses one fair maiden to serve in his palace. The others are condemned to death for a Roman holiday.

Partially lost film. One of the kings of ancient Thebes enters the abode of an astrologer and demands that he be told his future. The former utterly refuses to forecast the coming events of his sovereign, even under the pain of death; but he brings forth a priestess who possesses the powers of divination. This priestess is introduced in a wonderful way: a throne is brought forward, and then a box from which the pieces of a statue are removed and piled up in regular order; the statue suddenly becomes animated. The king implores the latter to foretell his life. She commands him to look through a telescope toward the side of the room. A vision appears. (Moving Picture World)

Travelogue about the Peak Tram in Hong Kong. A journey with this funicular from the top to the end point, the city below. The camera is in front of the tram, so that only the rails and the landscape are visible, and the effect of a roller coaster is created.

In this picture we see a man who is vested with authority to enforce the law, but, unlike the usual sort of men occupying the same position, he is so kind-hearted that ofttimes he is governed by his sentiments, and is very indiscreet in meting out just punishment to offenders, He is patrolling in the country, where lawbreakers are not numerous, but once in a while it will happen that somebody is guilty of an act that is not just in keeping with propriety. His first duty is to arrest a pair of lovers whom he catches kissing, but when he comes upon the love-sick couple, and threatens to arrest them, his heart is softened by their tears, so he allows them to go their way with some good advice.

A remarkable early short silent movie that shows what may be achieved with the technology of the day. A woman sits in front of her dressing table mirror, looking at her jewellery and her reflection in the mirror. Suddenly, another woman appears in the mirror. As the woman watches, the image changes to other women. As the woman looks at her jewellery, women's faces begin to appear in the jewellery stones.

Renée Carl stars in this lively slapstick silent short as a beautiful lady who causes distractions and accidents among the male population as she walks though the streets of Paris.

Based on the play by A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin.

A recording of a trip on the Kinda Canal in Sweden, going from Linköping to Alvastra.

Lost film, one of several adaptation of Shakespeare's play from the silent era. Do not confuse with Mario Caserini's version, released in May of the same year.

Cited as "the first silent vampire film", it is actually a pirate film and has nothing to do with vampires.

Film about an inventor going wild

An art student inherits a sum of money and has his fellow students over to celebrate. Chaos ensues.

In a British barrack in India is confined a tamed gorilla which has conceived a hatred for one of the Hindoo attendants, owing to the barbarous treatment which the Hindoo accords the beast. This attendant proves to be a traitor to the British interests, and avails himself of his opportunities to possess himself of military papers and secrets which he carries to his friends in the rebel camp. (Moving Picture World)

A family tries to eat dinner, but the table vanishes and reappears, changes shape and location, all in the usual manner laid down by Melies, but here copied by Segundo de Chomón.

1908 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès, which is currently presumed lost.