Year 1908 - 14

An episodic narrative displaying examples of humankind's brutality, from the story of Cain and Abel through the Hague Convention of 1907.

A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.

A French silent film directed by Louis Feuillade.

After receiving a scolding for falling asleep on the job, Cupid is sent out in search of potential lovers to unite. While flying over a city, he finds a ballroom dance and identifies a likely couple. He is successful in getting them to meet, but many obstacles still stand in the way of Cupid achieving his goal for them.

A gang of outlaws are planning a bank robbery. After making preparations, they commit the robbery and make their escape amidst a sharp exchange of bullets. They return to their meeting place, and then hurriedly continue onwards, with lawmen close behind them.

Two pranksters, finding out that a couple is about to apply for a marriage license at the town mayor's office, sneak into the office to pull a practical joke. First they rig up the furniture with string; then they hide in the room, inside some big boxes they put in place of the mayor's desk. When the bridal party arrives for the license, the pranksters go to work, making the chairs and "desk" move of their own accord, foiling the bride's and groom's attempts to sit and the mayor's attempts to write. Finally, the pranksters appear, disguised under white sheets as ghosts. The bridal party rushes in surprise out of the office as the joke comes to a successful close.

Footage of the expedition leaving Antarctica from New Zealand shot by government cameraman James McDonald. His excellency Admiral Sir Wilmot Hawksworth Fawkes, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy's Australian Station, visits and inspects the "Nimrod."

Policemen singing a song.

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.

Early Balkan footage.

Early Balkan footage.

In this comedy we see a fellow giving orders to the cook to put plenty of garlic in his food, and she complies with his wishes by giving everything an extra dose of the unpleasant ingredient. The first victim of the fumes is a dog that is seated beside the table, and when the fellow blows his breath on the animal he falls over unconscious from the effects. Next he prostrates a street cleaner and a painter perched on a ladder, as well as a woman in charge of a newsstand. They all succumb and fall over unconscious on the ground. He enters the subway and meets a man coming up the stairs, and when the latter gets a whiff of the garlic he too, goes down in a heap. Entering the car in the underground road he proceeds to waft the strong odor over the passengers, with the effect that each in turn goes down and out on the floor of the coach. When he reaches the next station he alights, leaving the car looking more like a hospital than anything.

A frog hops around a magic fountain.

When a bully steals their ball, a kind war veteran lends the saddened children a helping hand. And a leg or two…

Silent film from Georges Méliès, presumed to be lost.

A countryman buys a stubborn donkey and has trouble.

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.