This film was photographed in the winter, much of it during an actual snowstorm, and snow can be seen on the ground in all scenes. The subject is a group of men, clothed only in swimming trunks, who demonstrate their physical prowess by doing calisthenics, playing handball, and swimming during freezing weather.
A young student goes to his father and asks for money. When this isn't enough he goes to his mother who gives him more. Happy, he meets his friends who are at a cafe with two young women. They eat and drink and the waiter comes with the bill and demands the student pay it. A fight ensues and he is brought back to his parents house in a carriage. His parents wake up and rush to their son who can't furnish an explanation.
The cameraman photographed over the right shoulder of a young woman reclining on a couch while rebuffing the advances of a young man intent on kissing her. Throughout the film, the young woman eludes his advances. Finally, at the end of the picture, she seems to have accepted his persistence as sincere, and she allows him to kiss her.
At an island penal institution, new prisoners are brought in one-by-one, and introduced to the harsh realities of prison life. They are put in fetters, sent to perform hard physical labor, and treated brutally. One convict manages to cut through the bars on his cell window. He climbs out, steals a boat, and begins a desperate attempt to escape from the island.
A group of men with a broken down auto get an assist from a man who can’t walk.
A little man appears out of the smoke.
A young man leers through a peephole in the wall separating two dressing rooms, but he is caught, and is humiliated by his victims, two pretty ladies.
A living statue causes trouble for unsuspecting bystanders.
The French short film recreates key moments from the Russian revolution of 1905 in Odessa.
A scientist dreams of prehistoric monsters. He awakes in a cavern. A dinosaur chases him, even though he tries to shoot it with his revolver. The chase continues onto the surface. The professor meets a group of prehistoric women, who flee when other monsters appear. The professor's wife finds him sleeping in the laboratory, surrounded by fossils, and wakes him with water from a siphon. This short film is only viewable at the BFI, and its generally believed to be the first film depiction of dinosaurs, here accomplished through the use of simple pantomime costumes.
Unverified phonoscene (chronograph #7 in Gaumont catalogue?) showing a performance of the cake walk.
Armand Dranem performs The True Jiu-Jitsu ("Le Vrai Jiu-Jitsu", by P. Briollet & G. Fabri / C. D'Orviet) in this phonoscene by Alice Guy. This early form of music video was created using a chronophone recording of Dranem, who was then filmed "lip singing". Guy would film phonoscenes of all three major Belle Époque celebrities in France: Polin, Félix Mayol, and Dranem.
A young woman receives a message, and hurriedly leaves home. But the message was a trick to lure her into a trap, where she is assaulted and killed. When her body is found floating in the river, it is brought to her father. Once he realizes what has been done to his daughter, the father immediately sets out in an effort to extract vengeance.
Felix Mayol performs a song, in colour.
An elephantine spectacle, likely part of the celebrations for the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to India.
Several chairs rest against a blank wall; three men, then a fourth and soon seven in all, divide into various pairs and wrestle for the camera.
The apprentice at a pastry shop is more interested in playing tricks on people than sweeping the pavement in front of the shop; more interested in eating the pies with a friend than in delivering them; and so, when the butts of all his tricks set off after him, he runs.... but takes a few swipes at them.
A policeman has breakfast with his wife and children, and then prepares for the day's work. While on his beat, he finds and helps a lost child. Later, several officers try to save a woman who has attempted to drown herself. And there are some even more hazardous situations yet to come.
The camera is high above Manhattan near the top of the Times Building, pointing down.
A film adaptation of the play by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey.
