Year 1908 - 25

Brussels in the Belle Epoque, recorced on film in a straightforward way. Camera work and editing are purely functional. The film observes busy everyday life in the metropolis as it happens on the street (including Boulevard Anspach, Rue de la Loi, Boulevard Emile Jacqmain), in the parks (Brussels Park and Parc du Cinquantenaire) and on the markets (including Grand Place). The iconic buildings feature extensively, buildings such as the Bourse, the Law Courts, St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels' City Hall and the Parliament. After the tram ride through the Forêt de Soignes to the Congo Museum in Tervuren, the film ends with panoramic images of the city.

German Tonbild.

A proud father takes his many children to an outing.

French film.

A mischievous boy steals the calf's head from a drunk man, who has been sent by his wife to buy it. The boy then places the ruminant's head on the man's shoulders.

1908 Vitagraph Company one-reel short film.

A drunk dreams that he is carried off to Hell.

Recording of the voice of an African man.

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.

A young woman sitting on a bench in the public park is annoyed by an old man sitting next to her and paying her persistent attention. Resenting this ridiculous flirtation, the young lady rises to leave, but the old man tries to stop her, so she pushes him down and is soon seen seeking more peaceful quarters. The old flirt, disgusted, starts reading his paper, when his attention is attracted by an advertisement of some wonderful pills. (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.

Song from an Operetta.

Silent pull the mourners behind the coffins of their unfortunate colleagues past the camera.

An early silent film, made before intertites became common (which is why very early silent films are narrated, at best). This was filmed in 1907 but released in 1908. It was made at the request of Teddy Roosevelt, who saw coyotes being caught in Oklahoma *by hand*, and folks back east didn't believe him. While this movie is called "The Wolf Hunt", it was actually coyotes being caught, not wolves.

Laying the Foundation Stone of Gustav Adolf's Church.

Traveling by boat to film Copenhagen from a different angle.

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

Inventor Jacob Ellehammer's first attempts at flying.

The Germans were not far behind when if came to experimenting with sound and the surviving discs seem like a curious anachronism because they closely resemble the Vitaphone discs from the mid-1920s: about sixteen inches in diameter and the track started from the center and the needle moved out.