The film shows a parade down Fifth Avenue, New York. In the foreground many children, both black and white, can be seen following alongside the parade. The participants in the parade include cowboys, Indians, and soldiers in the uniform of the United States Cavalry on horseback and riding horse-drawn coaches. Buffalo Bill can be seen on horseback, lifting his hat to the crowd. Filmed on 1 April 1901.
A sorceress conjures up a bevy of beauties for a bachelor to peruse.
This early docudrama shows Auburn Prison and recreates the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley of the United States.
A man, objecting to being filmed, comes closer and closer to the camera lens until his mouth is all we see. Then he opens wide and swallows camera and cinematographer. He steps back, chews, and grins.
Our presidential hunter runs across the landscape and falls down in the snow, gets up with his rifle, and gazes upward at a treed animal which isn't in the camera's view. He fires a shot into the tree, then leaps on the ground to grab the fallen prey, a domestic cat, finishing it off with wild blows of his hunting knife while his companions, a photographer and a press agent, record the event that will be reported far and wide as a manly moment. Teddy then rides out of the forest followed by two companions afoot, never mind that they all originally arrived afoot. Perhaps it was funnier in its day than it is now, but apparently shooting cats was regarded as funny in those days. The larger point was to use a minor whimsy as a political criticism, in this case of Teddy Roosevelt's easy manipulations of the press. It was based on two frames of a political cartoon that had appeared in the paper a mere week before the film was made.
At the beginning of the scene Romeo in his gondola sings to Juliet a sentimental song, then goes away. Hardly has he departed when the colonnade falls to pieces, disclosing the devil. Juliet, frightened, runs to the window and calls Romeo. The latter attempts to enter and protect his fiancée, but at a gesture from the devil the window is instantly covered with a grating and Romeo makes frantic efforts to break it. The devil begins to dance a wild dance before Juliet, who is beside herself from terror. The devil gradually becomes the size of a giant (a novel effect). Juliet implores the statue of Madonna, which becomes animated, descends from its pedestal, and stretching out its arms orders the devil to disappear. (Méliès Catalog)
A scene from Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Despite the common belief, this is NOT the world's first Dickens' adaptation in cinema.
Time-lapse photography showing the one month-long demolition of the Star Theatre in New York.
A flood of Lancashire cotton workers and their children at the end of another shift.
Film produced by William K. Dickson’s British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
An inventive use of slow-motion filming helps hammer home the gag as an unconvincing 'Indian chief' hopes to dissolve some trapped wind with a popular brand of indigestion powder.
Filmed in 35mm and in black and white, this short silent film was produced by the English film pioneer R. W. Paul, and directed by Walter R. Booth and was filmed at Paul's Animatograph Works. It was released in November 1901. As was common in cinema's early days, the filmmakers chose to adapt an already well-known story, in this case A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, in the belief that the audience's familiarity with the story would result in the need for fewer intertitles. It was presented in 'Twelve Tableaux' or scenes.
Single panning shot of the Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta.
A short documentary registering the meeting between two aviation pioneers: the Brazilian Santos Dumont and the Briton Charles Rolls. In it, Dumont presents his ideas for a future balloon, showing to Rolls the concept of such invention and the project with his notes, all of which the other man delightfully enjoys.
Footage of Edward VII in the funeral procession of his mother, Queen Victoria.
A poor old woman tries in vain to get rid of some troublesome fleas.
With the exception of this film there are absolutely no genuine moving picture films representing genuine prize fights on the market. The prize fight films, so-called, are either taken by the fight promoters and retained by them for exhibition, not on sale and cannot be procured, or else they are the boldest fake reproductions put up the day following the fight by cheap, so-called fighters, who endeavor, to the best of their ability and under the direction of the enterprising photographer, to represent or reproduce as nearly as possible the scrap which occured the evening before between the genuine principles. It is easy to see how very little real value films produced in these ways possess for the average public, which quick to see that the so-called priniples in the fight are not the men they are advertised to be, and the fight is not the real thing.
This wonderful dog "Mannie," owned by the vaudeville star, Miss Laura Comstock, is a most learned animal. He has been trained to perform all sorts of tricks, and his intelligence is, perhaps, most marked in his latest and most difficult feat, that of punching the bag. This picture depicts him in a bag punching performance which is really wonderful. His high jumps and lightning-like punches are remarkable and cause one to marvel at the amount of patience that must be necessary to teach a dog such tricks.
Pathé film number 380, released as "What Happened to the Inquisitive Janitor" in the US and as "Peeping Tom" in the UK. The title "What is Seen Through a Keyhole" was given 'a posteriori' and should not be regarded as its original. As a janitor is cleaning a hotel, he decides to peek through the keyholes to observe some of the guests in their rooms. In room 8, a woman is busy making herself look more attractive, and the janitor enjoys watching her. There are also some interesting things going on in the other rooms on the floor.
