annos singulos 1908 - 20

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

A couple of performers perform the big love number from the Oscar Strauss operetta.

Rempailleur is the French word for the person who repairs the wicker seat in chairs, and that's the central joke in this short comedy. A rubber-legged clown carries around more chairs than he can hold, has them stolen and steal other chairs.

King Herod is enchanted by Salome's dance and grants her wish for the head of John the Baptist.

A lion hunt filmed in 1908 by the aristocrat Hyacinthe Octavie Frédérique Louise Irénée Rolande Pirmez. This is the oldest known film to be shot in Ethopia.

A proud father takes his many children to an outing.

These extraordinary views of life and landscape in Beijing were filmed during the last years of China's Qing dynasty, before the 1911 Xinhai Revolution overthrew imperial rule. The focus is on everyday life, and the views of hawkers, laborers, traders, and artisans reveal the city’s vibrant street culture. Especially striking is the shot of a barber preening his client’s 'Manchu queue' hairstyle.

Jim's mother brings him to an architect's office to secure a position for him, and he is accepted. After clinging lovingly to his ma, he is induced to abandon his strangle hold, and he is taken into the drafting room. Here two clerks make merry with him, but he managed to even matters unconsciously by leaning on the heavy end of a table, upsetting it and all on it. Now his employers tell him to carry a set of plans, papers and instruments, with which he is to accompany them to a building. In the course of construction, Jim reaches to the top of a closet for some of the papers, upsets it, breaks some more furniture and finally reaches the street, struggling under a mass of paraphernalia, with which he strews his path as he goes.

Children play with their toys while Grandpa dozes. He dreams that the doll's house catches fire and the toys rush to put out the flames. He awakens to find the children squirting him with water.

Mr. Nearbright is busily engaged writing; consults his watch. His wife, accompanied by her "Ma" enters, attired for a journey, carrying small satchels. The husband rises, apparently delighted, and bids them good-bye. When the ladies have gone, Mr. Nearbright rushes to the telephone, gives a message which is gratifying, to all appearances. The door opens, and a friend, Mr. Flirt, enters, followed by other members of a "stag" club.

A workers meeting with folks showing the popular attires of the time.

This is a frustrating watch as there looks to be some great filmmaking there, but a number of scenes (including the beginning and end) are missing, the print is in poor condition. It looks very nice though and the production values are once again quite high, but the current presentation is a shame.

Early Brazilian silent film documenting the 1908 Carnival in Rio.

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

A quartet are making merry at a feast, and one of them is so full of liquor that he falls from his chair. At this his companions conceive, a clever plan for some fun. Taking a white fur suit from a wardrobe, they put him into it, and finishing the outfit with heavy white gloves and fitting a hollow bear head tightly over his own, they turn him out of the house resembling an intoxicated Polar Bruin.

Four women are drinking champagne at a couple of tables. A man comes into their midst and sings the title song in this sound-film from Deutsch Bioskop.

A woman attorney is seen in her apartment with her poor henpecked husband, who is more like her man servant than her better half. She is so taken up with her studies in law that she finds no time to bother with household duties, thus putting the burden on her husband who is compelled to take care of the baby, clean the house, do the cooking and be on hand, ready to answer whenever the wife calls on him to attend to her wants. Things do not run very smoothly, however, which is not at all surprising, so she finally decides to take a hand in the domestic affairs herself. (Moving Picture World)

We can see the children of the director playing and dancing, obviously getting told what to do while it happens, and later on his wife knitting with the children around her.

The King has the archbishop murdered, then repents.

Tonbild (early form of sync sound film). The music is the sextet from Act Two of Lucia di Lammermoor, sung in German.