Year 1899 - 2

Twenty-five round fight.

The first movie ever censored for political reasons. The title refers to the then contemporaneous Dreyfus affair in which a Jewish military officer was falsely convicted of treason, and it was alleged that he was framed due to anti-semitism.

A bearded man hangs up a wreath and, like any good magician, waves his hands inside of it and under it to show us it's only a wreath…

A young woman in traditional Japanese attire fixes her hair and kimono while her servants assist her.

A miser dies of shock when the ghost of a poor woman appears.

Wilhelm II. visits a market place in Beirut, Lebanon.

Du Paty de Clam requests Captain Dreyfus to write as he dictates for the purpose of ascertaining whether his handwriting conforms to that of the Bordereau. He notices the nervousness of Dreyfus, and accuses him of being the author of the Bordereau. Paty de Clam offers Dreyfus a revolver, with advice to commit suicide. The revolver is scornfully rejected, Dreyfus stating that he had no need for such cowardly methods, proclaiming his innocence. His arrest is immediately ordered by M. Cochefort.

A reel of the Noh drama Momiji-gari, in which Danjuro Ichikawa played opposite Onoe Kikugoro V as an ogress who has disguised herself as the Princess Sarashina. Filmed by Shibata Tsunekichi in the open air on a windy day in November 1899, Danjuro would allow only the one take, so that when his fan blew away in mid-performance the scene had to stay. The film re-emerged at the Kikikan theatre in 1907 where it was a great success and inspired a wave of fiction filmmaking based on traditional Japanese narratives.

A film from Méliès has him playing a magician who does a few tricks including making a woman disappear.

An acrobatic act.

Taken from the front platform of a special train run backward over this celebrated S curve. Not only are the passing trains and crowded platforms of great interest, but the view of uptown New York is an excellent one, showing acre upon acre of roofs, towers, steeples and towering apartment houses. As the 'special' slows up at 92nd street, a Harlem express dashes by, the engineer leaning out of his cab, and waving a good-bye.

A countryman goes to see a spiritualist and is frightened by what he sees.

Reenactment of action in the Spanish-American War.

A priest is officiating at a convent, when suddenly he is transformed into the devil, who frightens away the nuns and turns the place into pandemonium.

A devil wearing bat-like wings and brandishing a trident dances around a giant pot, conjuring forth flame from his trident to lit a fire beneath the pot. After the devil works the fire with bellows, an angelic woman emerges from the pot. The devil and the pot vanish as the woman performs a dance, waving about her diaphanous sleeves until she conjures forth another fire, then she rises amongst the smoke into the air.

This commercial traveler has evidently had a wet day judging from the strange things he sees at his hotel. The hall boy shows him to his room, puts down his grips, and then disappears through the ceiling. Drummer pushes button five times for a drink, and waiter appears through the floor. Drummer turns to sit down on the bed it disappears. He fights with the waiter, is overcome, and waiter locks him in a trunk and sits on it. After a while he opens the trunk; behold, it's empty. Drummer appears mysteriously, picks up a big book, hits waiter on head, and drives him through the floor. Drummer dances in delirious glee.

Spectators on the quayside at Southampton wave farewell as the crowded troopship Roslin Castle moves away to the right of the picture. Large numbers of troops on board wave back to loved ones and the crowd including thr 2nd Battaliion West Yorkshires. Date: 20th October 1899.

Wilhelm II. arrives in Haifa, Israel.

Gentlemen get into a misunderstanding over absinthe. There is no known credited director for this film, although the attribution usually goes for Alice Guy.

In a square room, two men and two women, in white body-hugging clothes, try on wrestling holds, each with a partner of the same sex.