Year 1908 - 24

A boy puts glue in his brother's moustache lotion.

Market in Jonkoping

Cityscapes of Kalmar and Sölvesborg

Short film from 1908

A 1908 short film

Little Johnny is presented with an air gun that shoots darts. He decided to play pranks with it.

A raffle booth at a country fair is shown, at which live stock is being drawn for, in full operation. The good, folk gathered about hold numbers and as the wheel turns a clown distributes among the winners, chickens, rabbits and geese. One portly gentleman wins a pig and becomes so elated on receiving his prize that with some friends he goes to a café to drink. He indulges by far too freely and spills many bottles of liquor into the pig's anatomy, via its mouth, until the animal seems to be intoxicated too.

Originally it was called White City because when it opened, all the buildings were painted white. It was a fairgrounds, intended to celebrate the 1904 Entente Cordiale between France and Great Britain, that would, a decade later, leading to the unbreakable web of alliances that would cause the First World War.

A young woman is seen in thin film laughing at a youth, who, having fallen desperately in love with her at first sight, is ardently pressing his suit. Hearing footsteps in the passage, the young woman explains to her suitor that her husband is returning, and, terrified at the news, the timid Romeo jumps out of the window. He rushes down the street, and, seeing a messenger sitting on his stand at the corner, bribes the man to lend him his outfit; this accomplished he takes the boy's place and keeps watch over the residence of his Juliet. The husband returning, informs his wife in high glee that he has been appointed salesman for one of the largest crockery stores in the town, and before long is on his way to his new office, much to the satisfaction of the enamored messenger keeping watch.

Short reportage

The film documents the course of events taking place during the Sokol Festival Gathering of the North-Bohemian District held in the town of Prostějov. We can see the busy square and the adjacent streets, a parade marching through the town, and parts of individual exercise pieces performed near the Prostějov Sokol hall.

Robbers wait by the roadside ready to spring upon a series of passing travellers, gleefully hiding their stolen plunder in a hollow tree. When a Jewish man comes along with a bag full of gold, the villains treat him worse than the others and tie him to the tree.

Silent film footage from late Qing dynasty China, depicting everyday scenes.

A early German Piccolo-Duett.

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.

Early sound short from Deutsche Bioscop GmbH.

Sigmund Liban sings forty second from the prologue to PAGLIACCI in this early sound film.

Only the visual elements are known to survive from this 1908 recording of a duet from Franz von Suppe's early one-act operetta. As is usual with these recordings, the principal performers take center stage, face the camera directly, and let fly. There are other cast members in the background, providing a drunken chorus.

Here's something a little lighter than usual from the series of three-minute musical shorts produced in Germany from 1906 to. 1910 - twenty years before most people think of the birth of talkies. Instead of serious music, it's a duet from an operetta, THE DOLLAR PRINCESS.