Cinematic Era: 1909 Vintage

Ugo Falena version of William Shakespeare's Othello.

Melodrama about a rich father who gains custody of his child while the mother goes off in tears. Of course, the child is miserable even though he has everything in the world but after a weekend trip at his poor mother's house, the child realizes that money isn't everything and he has to convince the father that his money is evil.

Based on a the horror novella of the same name. First Russian horror film.

Based on the poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin.

Based on the novel of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. "Filming of the theater play performed by the Ukrainian troupe N. Sadovsky". Film illustration, not quite successful in mastering the classics. The film is stored in the Gosfilmofond of Russia.

Bill Going is the star pitcher for his local Choctaw baseball team. Gamblers from Jimtown try to persuade him to throw the game and he shoots and kills them. He is given a reprieve to pitch the last game of the year.

Out-of-work, Tim steals a sandwich, then knocks out the policeman who chases him. He changes into the policeman's uniform, and is approached by a wife who needs help with her drunken husband.

A scientist has acquired a microscope and is showing it off to his friend. He takes various body samples - hair, phlegm, etc. - and puts them under the microscope. The "microbes" coalesce and form different shapes, creating caricatures of various people, such as mothers-in-law and drunks. These animated characters goof around in traditional cartoon fashion.

Duck archery is not the same as duck hunting. This is a Pordenone moment I will never forget – in actuality short Distraction et Sport à Batavia (1909), the residents of what is now call Jakarta make the most of their leisure time by pursuing a variety of mostly healthy exploits. But really, I can see no justification, nor explanation for why a round of archery needs to be enlivened by affixing live poultry to the target. As my good man Peter tweeted at the time: “One right in the neck, yeesh.” Sensitive viewers should be aware that animal cruelty abounds in silent cinema – the most notable, and egregious, example is Edison’s notorious Electrocuting an Elephant. The most poignant fictional example is perhaps the poor horse in Eisenstein’s October. (from http://silentlondon.co.uk/2015/01/23/10-disgusting-moments-in-silent-cinema/)

A Calino comedy short.

Silent short

This story is based upon the celebrated drama of that title

The young Edward V, King of England, enters London where he is crowned. But the king's uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, eager to come to the throne, contemplates the loss of the young king and his brother. He therefore had them declared bastards and locked them up in the Tower of London. The Duke of Buckingham and the king's supporters help the two prisoners escape. They are recaptured and delivered to the assassins. Gloucester usurps the crown. But mortally wounded in the war, he succumbs, prey to the remorse awakened in his conscience by the vision of his victims.

After being chased off private property, Boy Scouts rescue the land-owner's kidnapped daughter.

Sir Walter Scott adaptation, existing in fragmentary form in the Library of Congress paper print collections.

A father has two sons, the older one serious and hard-working, the younger one spendthrift and pleasure-seeking. The latter rejects his father's authority and leaves home. It is not long before he wastes all his fortune and falls into poverty. He repents and decides to return home. Despite his older son's resentment, the father welcomes back the lost sheep.

An item in the 24 Jul 1909 Moving Picture World called this film “a series of magic drawing executed by the fountain pen….[It] is interesting and amusing, in that it develops some curious pictures that constantly dissolve into others equally interesting and amusing.”

Madame Croquemitaine is an evil fairy who steals little children and transforms them into various vegetable plants: cabbages, asparagus, radishes, carrots... which grow and multiply in her vegetable garden. But little Geoffroy, whose brothers and sisters have been taken away by Mrs. Croquemitaine, implores with all his might the fairy Aimable, who comes to his aid and gives him a magic wand that will help him overcome all the obstacles that separate him from his captive brothers and sisters.

Splendid period images documenting the wonderful landscape that leads from Bolzano to Cortina d'Ampezzo.

Some girls visit a theatre play, a preposterous melodrama with grotesque overacting.

A sympathetic story of a moral dilemma set at the turn of the 19th century. A Frenchman joins the Chouannerie – a Royalist uprising in opposition to the French Revolution, led by a group of guerrilla warriors known as the Chouans – to provide for his wife and two children. While on duty he receives word that his youngest son is gravely ill, and so deserts his post to return home. He is condemned to death as a deserter, but his wife uses her own body as a shield against the executioner’s bullet.

A romanced version of the apparitions of Mary at Lourdes in 1856.

Roman emperor Nero is used to getting what he wants. He has grown tired of his wife Octavia, and has become infatuated with Poppea. He succeeds in making Poppea the new empress, but soon he faces opposition from an outraged populace. Informed of the danger of an imminent popular uprising, Nero orders to set fire to the city, which he watches from a terrace, rejoicing and playing his lyra.

Alphonse and Gaston get into an argument over cocktails and agree to a duel.

Drama Short

Short animated film

Recreates a horrific lust-murder sequence from kabuki theatre, starring members of the Kasen Makamura all-girl troupe.

Our story opens with a noted violinist practicing, his young wife sitting nearby, while their little daughter plays about on the floor, a truly happy family. The maid announces a caller, who, upon being ushered in, is presented to the wife. He is at once struck with her beauty, eyes her continually, but unnoticed by the musician or his wife. As the two men leave the room, for the first time the wife catches the expression on the caller's face and is worried. A year later in the same room we find the wife packing her suit case preparing to elope with the villain. Before their departure the wife writes a note telling her husband of her elopement and begs him to forget her. A moment after the pair leave the room the valet enters, observes them from the window, picks up the note, reads it and immediately starts for the theater to inform his master. He rushes upon the stage just as the musician is finishing his number, excitedly tells the tale and gives him the letter.

This subject presents a remarkably clever series of illusions in which a Japanese lantern, several dolls, chickens, mice and grasshoppers play a very prominent part.

A walk through the streets, buildings and gardens of Rio de Janeiro, including high waves and tides advancing into the roads.

A spoiled rich boy meets and falls in love with an older woman, a dancer who is more amused than flattered by his attentions.

Nymphs and cupids dance in celebration of the arrival of Spring.

Showing a weird invention, called hypnotic mirror, in action. Placed before anyone the polished surface reflects the actual thoughts within their minds. Its uses in the court room, the home and the school house are cleverly shown. When the mechanism tells a wife the truth about her husband, something commences.

Part one of Blackton’s “The Life of Napoleon". Napoleon meets Josephine, falls in love with her, marries and then divorces her.

The story of Vicente López y Planes writing the national anthem of Argentina.

The journey of the oyster from seabed to dinner plate.

A man, his wife and their two sons are having a meal. One of the sons leaves the room pretending to be ill and collects a bunch of flowers form a cupboard and goes out. The other son takes a bunch of flowers from under his bed and he too leaves, followed by their father, also carrying flowers. The two sons and their father call on the same young women one after the other; as each arrives, the previous suitor is hidden in a piece of furniture: the father under a chair cover, one son in a cupboard and the other in a piano. A girlfriend of the young woman visits and the two play pranks on the hiding men by playing the piano and sitting on the chair cover. The three men emerge and the father chases his two sons outside until they remind him of his own folly; he gives his sons some money and urges them to keep silent.

Mr. Jones jumps to the wrong conclusions when he sees a bouquet of flowers and a man's hat in the parlor.

A contest is being held in Cremona for the best violin, with Giannina's hand in marriage as the prize. Filippo is secretly in love with her, but is also ashamed of being a cripple, so he switches his superior violin with that of another apprentice, Sandro, whom Giannina loves.

Nymphs and cupids dance in celebration of the arrival of Spring.

African animals, including a lookout monkey, await with trepidation the arrival of big-game hunter Theodore Roosevelt.

The work of Jacques Serval.

Funerals of students Ribeiro Junqueira and Araújo Guimarães, murdered in Rio de Janeiro. You can see perfectly the exit of the coffins from the Faculty of Medicine and the great funeral procession parade through the central streets to the cemetery, as well as the moment when the academic Armando Aragão spoke from a window of the Faculty.

‘Kinevodevil with conversations, singing and dancing’ based on Nikolai Gogol's short story ‘The Night Before Christmas’.

Registration of the city of Stockholm and its surroundings. Shots from a tram of various cityscapes: a park, brass band, shopping street, market, canals and boats.

Documentary on the Messina earthquake

Framed in a wreath of roses we see a lithe Creek dancer, who sways and postures before an epicurean party of ancients, followed by a laurel wreath and encircling a scene showing school children of 1830 receiving their marks of diligence at a distribution of rewards: then the wreath of bay tendered by the Human Senators to Caesar on the culmination of his career; now a beggar receives a loaf called a "crown" from a charitable passerby: Christ is shown crowned with thorns by the rabble; following the divine drama we see the old comedian's wreath presented him at a performance. The next view shows the Emperor Charlemagne crowning his son Lewis. The film closes with the wreath of orange blossoms encircling a bridal party.

The events of the two factions, Guelph and Ghibelline , are intertwined with the life of Dante Alighieri

Three little girls fall into a sand pit and can't get out. One of them ties a note around her pet pigeon's neck and releases it. The pigeon flies home, alerting the parents to where the girls are trapped.

The story of Sapho is laid in the Grecian era and Sapho is depicted as a wealthy woman of that period who has a host of admirers and a still greater host of maid servants who worship her.

Early special effects film in which a woman throws a basket of flowers in the air, upon which the flowers create different shapes and figures and eventually spell out the words "Buona Sera".

Early 20th century film footage of Japan.

The manufacture of a new weapon in the pre-WWI naval arms race.

First film of Burnham Beeches, the famous beauty spot and ultimate film location.