The earliest films, 1890s-1915.
The earliest films, 1890s-1915. Streaming 24 hours a day, synchronized to the second across all viewers worldwide.
The following films and shorts broadcast on CH 70 FLICKER:
Edison's 1910 silent Frankenstein: a young scientist builds a creature and lives to regret it.
A 1915 silent film of Lewis Carroll's story. Down the rabbit hole, in the silent era.
Edison's silent 1910 take on Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Scrooge meets the spirits in a brisk single reel.
Helen Gardner stars as Cleopatra in a 1912 silent from her own picture players, staged in elaborate tableaux. The queen, the Nile and Antony.
Charlie Chaplin in a 1914 Keystone comedy about a movie-studio hopeful. Film-making is the joke.
A 1905 street-level view from Billy Bitzer's camera, titled 2 A.M. in the Subway. Late-night New York, in flickering black and white.
A couple kiss for the Edison camera in 1896, and audiences blushed. Short, sweet, and one of the most famous snippets of early film.
D. W. Griffith's 1909 Biograph short about the Revolutionary War era and its Hessian troops. Short, tense, flintlock-era drama.
Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 Carmen: a Gypsy woman and a lovestruck soldier on a collision course. Prosper Merimee's novella, silent-screen style.
Charlie Chaplin trains a boxer, and himself, for a big fight in this 1915 comedy. Horseshoe gloves are not in the rules.
D. W. Griffith's 1910 Biograph short about a child of the ghetto. Silent drama from the director's early days.
A collection of short films from Thomas Edison's studios, 1891 to 1898. Strongmen, dancers and street scenes from the dawn of movies.
Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 melodrama: a desperate socialite embezzles charity funds and turns to a Burmese ivory trader. Preserved in the National Film Registry.
A gust of wind on 23rd Street and a woman's skirt. An Edison staged comic scene with cameraman Alfred Abadie and Florence Georgie, 1901.
D. W. Griffith's 1912 Biograph short with Billy Bitzer behind the camera. A cornered creature in the title, a tight chase on screen.
Georges Méliès stirs up The Infernal Cauldron, a hellish silent trick film.
Cecil B. DeMille's silent version of Owen Wister's novel. A cowboy courts the schoolteacher and helps catch cattle rustlers. Dustin Farnum stars.
A 1903 Billy Bitzer short whose title promises a frontier flirtation. Very early film, barely a minute of it, and made to be watched in a flash.
D. W. Griffith's 1908 Biograph short about an elopement gone calamitously wrong. Silent comedy at one-reel pace.
A 1909 screen version of Shakespeare's fairy comedy, starring Florence Turner. Silent Bard, enchanted forest included.
Charlie Chaplin in a 1915 Essanay comedy where a disguise changes everything. Skirts, mix-ups and Chaplin in character.
Three Sioux men dance for Edison's camera in this 1894 peep-show short. A staged studio performance, preserved from a 35mm print.
Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp wanders into a farm and a girl's trouble in this 1915 comedy. The sweet and sad one.
Charlie Chaplin takes a 1915 stroll through the park and meets pickpockets, sweethearts and sausages. Benches and bad behavior.
Part two of an Edison film collection, 1899 to 1902. Short views, staged gags and street scenes from the turn of the century.
Bandits hold up a train and a posse gives chase in Edwin S. Porter's 1903 landmark western, ending with a famous shot straight at the audience.
Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary walks down a street lined with cheering people, with a military entourage. 1910 royal pageantry.
A very brief view of Dr. William Gorgas, the Panama Canal's chief sanitation officer, standing in front of a building. Fever fighter, 1904-1913.
Water rushes through Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Arizona, while a car crosses the dam road. Panoramic views, 1911.
A pack train of mules kicks up dust on the Santiago Trail in Cuba, with cowboys herding. Spanish-American War, 1898.
Theodore Roosevelt visits San Francisco in 1903. The camera sits at O'Farrell and Van Ness and pans over the parade.
Wife Clarice and the McGinis household chase fashion in this silent comedy that pokes fun at society's love of stuff. This reel covers the women's styles.
Theodore Roosevelt on his horse Sidar shakes hands with an Associated Press correspondent at Sagamore Hill. Summer 1912.
The famous 1906 Market Street ride, filmed for Hale's Tours by the Miles Brothers, starting at their studio at 1139 Market. San Francisco before the quake.
Three dancers in full costume perform the Mikado dance for Edison's camera. The catalog said it looked best colored.
Teddy Roosevelt strolls a Louisiana beach in 1915 and watches birds on a sanctuary island. Filmed by Herbert Job of the Audubon Society.
An exhausted stenographer can't keep up until a man demonstrates the Edison business phonograph. A 1910 office comedy with a sales pitch.
A reel of Vitagraph film fragments copied from paper prints, around 1908. Snippets of silent shorts that survived on photographic paper.
A reel of Vitagraph film fragments copied from paper prints, around 1909. Snippets of silent shorts that survived on photographic paper.
James J. Corbett, the former champion, boxes Peter Courtney in six rounds for Edison's Kinetograph. A real fight, 1894, in a tiny studio.
A fire chief's buggy leads engines, hose carts and ladder trucks galloping toward the camera. Harrisburg's finest, filmed by Edison in 1896.
A six-round boxing match between Mike Leonard, the 'Beau Brummel' of the ring, and Cushing, filmed in 1894 by Edison's team.
A crowd leaves the Claremont Theatre in New York, where Edison is showing On the Stroke of Twelve. 1915 moviegoing, in the lobby.
Thompson and Dundy's Luna Park and Dreamland shine at night, lit by their own concessions. Coney Island, 1905.
Boys in caps and girls in fancy hats walk down the steps at the end of a school day. A 1914 look at teenagers headed home.
Buffalo Bill Cody dozes off and dreams his own life: Wild West show scenes, a wagon train attack and a posse chase. A 1912 reenactment.
A New York harbor pilot boat glides past, followed by a steamship. The schooner is trim as a private yacht. 1899.
Heavy industry as spectacle: coal cars tip their loads in one go, from Edison's Erie Railroad series.
Bathers at San Francisco's Sutro Baths whoop off a springboard and a toboggan slide into a huge indoor pool, 1897.
Ten stylish horses and carts trot past the judges at the Monmouth County horse show, 1897. High-stepping, polished and proud.
The Laughing Waters of Longfellow's Hiawatha, a waterfall view from 1897. Rushing water and a very old tourist postcard.
A waterfall against heavy timber at Yellowstone, Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon. An 1897 travelogue of scenery.
A crew of seven in cork jackets pushes a surf boat into the waves, climbs aboard and rows out to a wreck.
Hundreds of carriages and Parisian buses pass near the main entrance on the Champs-Elysees. Paris traffic in 1900, with horses at the wheel.
Edison's 1900 camera lashed to the stern of a ship crossing the Atlantic captures a rough ocean in the middle of a storm.
About nine hundred cattle pour out of a corral at a Mexican hacienda, driven by cowboys straight toward the camera. 1898, dust and hooves.
Prisoners are marched along a chain after cleaning the grounds of the Charleston Exposition. A 1902 document of its time, in a harsh period.
Wrecking boats circle the twisted iron remains of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. Filmed from a moving launch, 1898.
A professor and Mephisto compete in magic, making young ladies appear and vanish from a swing. An Edison trick film, 1900.
A team of six dashes up as tourists arrive at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in Yellowstone. 1899, coach travel and Wild West tourism.
A fast pan from the tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, from the Battery up the East River. New York harbor, 1899.
A 1900 double exposure puts dancer Mlle. Cathrina Bartho's Speedway dance over the churning Whirlpool Rapids of Niagara Falls.
A four-horse stagecoach delivers a mail pouch to a rural post office. A slice of 1903 mail delivery.
A pan along the Champ de Mars ends with the base of the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero in the background. Paris in 1900.
A Chinese man is arrested and led away in San Francisco's Chinatown while a crowd looks on. An 1897 Edison view, staged or not, from a dated outsider's eye.
Wrecked warehouses, stranded boats and tents for the homeless along Galveston's docks after the 1900 hurricane. A sobering Edison newsreel-style record.
Thousands leave the grandstand at the Longchamps military review and surge across the parade grounds toward Paris. A very busy 1900 crowd scene.
Waves crash over the rocks at Monterey and burst into silvery spray, 1897. Early nature footage, no soundtrack needed.
Boer cavalry rides hard toward the camera, horses straining at full speed. A theatrical Edison war scene from 1900.
Mephistopheles hands Faust a sword and tells him to behead Marguerite. A 1900 Edison version of the old devil's bargain, with theatrical magic.
The cruiser Chitose again, this time nearly head-on, with rowboats crowding the foreground.
A gust of wind sends Auntie sprawling over a stone wall, landing right on her bustle. An 1901 Edison trick comedy.
A New York Journal dispatch boat carrying war correspondents cuts through the water in 1898, billed as one of the fastest yachts around.
The Leander Sisters dance as Cupid and Psyche at the Sutro Baths in San Francisco. Wings, bow and arrow, and a lot of grace.
Admiral Dewey stands before the camera on the cruiser Olympia and says goodbye to a Washington committee. An 1899 Edison actuality.
Committees visit Admiral Dewey aboard the cruiser Olympia in 1899, an Edison actuality of a very formal handshake.
The Governor General, Lord Minto, and the Countess cross the river in ice canoes during Quebec's 1901 Winter Carnival.
A 1902 view of San Francisco from a drifting balloon, when passenger flights over the city still thrilled crowds. Rooftops, bay and a very long way down.
Two U.S. Navy eight-oar boats race side by side while a camera follows from a chase vessel. Sweat, oars and 1904 bragging rights.
Buffalo Bill's Wild West parade rolls down Fifth Avenue with cowboys, cavalry and kids running alongside. New York, 1901, show business on horseback.
Three men brand calves beside a hot fire while a herd waits behind them. Colorado ranch work in 1898, dust and smoke included.
A magician pulls national flags from a paper hoop in a patriotic 1900 trick film. Flags of Germany, Russia, Ireland and England appear in turn.
The Fifteenth Infantry in campaign uniforms and gear on Governor's Island, New York, captured around the turn of the century.
After a storm washes boats into the streets, boatmen band together to get a stranded schooner back in the water.
A busy street scene on Lower Broadway in New York City, filmed in 1902. Horses, streetcars and a crowd on the move.
Horse-drawn wagons dump trash from a New York pier onto a waiting barge, while men with shovels spread the pile. 1903.
The New York Harbor Police boat Patrol chases river pirates in a staged 1903 action short. A few shots, and the pirates give up.
A ride backward over New York's S curve on the elevated railway, shot from the front platform of a special train. Rooftops, towers and passing trains.
Weekend crowds on San Francisco's Ocean Beach near the Cliff House, in an afternoon panorama from 1903.
Wrecked docks, stacked freight cars and two schooners smashed together after the 1900 Galveston hurricane.
Time-lapse photography shows New York's Star Theatre being demolished over about a month, 1901. A building disappears before your eyes.
Seven small children hold hands and wade into the surf at Coney Island, with adults in the distance. A sweet seaside minute from 1904.
Formal guests and German naval sailors gather before the launch of Kaiser Wilhelm's yacht Meteor. A 1902 shipyard ceremony.
Robert Peary's schooner Roosevelt docks on the Hudson as men in straw hats and ladies in finery board for the Arctic. New York send-off, 1905.
A busy Friday morning at a Lower East Side fish market in 1903. Crowds press along the stands, choosing the catch.
More than 350 street cleaners and over 100 carts parade through New York for a review of the celebrated White Wings. 1903.
Canadian champion Tommy Burns defends his heavyweight title against Bill Squires in a fight billed as the shortest and fiercest on record.
A 1904 Edison tour of a county fair: trained horses, sulky races and prize animals. The title uses period slang for country folk.
The camera pans slowly across the 1915 San Diego Exposition grounds from high above, taking in every spire and building.
W.K.L. Dickson's 1891 greeting, made on an experimental horizontal-feed Edison camera. One of the very first moving pictures.
Two men dance to a violinist in an 1895 experiment for Edison's Kinetophone, which paired film with a phonograph. This copy is silent.
An 1891 Edison-Dickson experimental film of a Newark athlete, made on a horizontal-feed camera. Gymnastics in the lab.
Lee Martin, a genuine cowboy, rides an unusually wicked bronco in this 1894 Edison short. About forty feet of film, mostly bucking.
Juan Caicedo, billed as King of the slack wire, balances in midair in this 1894 Edison vaudeville short. No net shown.
Scenes from Mexico and the Paris Exposition from the Lumière brothers' operators, with folk dancing and food. A world tour in short reels.
A Parisian couple falls for a cow's milk in the countryside, buys her, and tries to take her home to the apartment. The misadventures start immediately.
An animated caricature of animals reacting to Theodore Roosevelt arriving in Africa, with a monkey sounding the alarm. Early political animation.
An animated cartoon of Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 European tour, with a big stick in hand and crowned heads in a car. Political satire, early animation style.
Dreamy Dud steals a pipe and blows smoke rings. The smoke turns into a ghost that carries him to the moon. Wallace Carlson's 1915 cartoon.
A close look at the carrot caterpillar and the pest control it demands. A 1911 Pathé educational short, strangely suspenseful.
A frontier melodrama of a runaway husband, a settler's daughter and a deadly family feud. Dated, staged view of Native characters.
Vaudeville's Glenroy Brothers act out The Comic View of Boxing, a tramp versus an athlete. Edison's camera caught it in 1894.
The whole Newark fire department, chief in front, gallops past with foam-flecked horses. Thrilling in 1896.
A sidewalk crowd in Albany watches fourteen pieces of horse-drawn fire equipment race past. A 1901 view of horsepower at work.
Mule trains haul supplies after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, soldiers riding two to a horse. A working record of disaster relief.
A staged reenactment of the Russo-Japanese War battle off Korea: a Japanese ship damages one Russian vessel and sinks another. Edison, 1904.
A Labor Day parade marches through bunting-draped streets, probably in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1906. Banners, bands and townsfolk.
Episode 1 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 crime serial. A Paris journalist starts chasing a shadowy gang, and it opens with a severed head.
Episode 10 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter is called The Terrible Wedding.
Episode 2 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter: The Ring That Kills.
Episode 4 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter is called The Spectre.
Episode 5 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter: Dead Man's Escape.
Episode 6 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter is called Hypnotic Eyes.
Episode 7 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter: Satanus.
Episode 8 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter is called The Thunder Master.
Episode 9 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter: The Poisoner.
Episode 3 of Louis Feuillade's 1915 serial about the Vampires, a Paris crime gang. This chapter: The Red Codebook.
Highlights from the California State Fair, including a stunt where two locomotives collide head-on. Subtle it is not.
Golden Spike ceremonies and celebration in Willits, Cain Rock, Arcata and Eureka mark the completion of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. Part I.
More Golden Spike festivities as California celebrates the Northwestern Pacific Railroad finishing its line in October. Part II.
A horse-drawn fire truck races to the Presidio School in San Francisco and firemen climb ladders to third-floor windows. Silent footage, early 1910s.
Gilbert M. Anderson's Broncho Billy is held captive by an outlaw in this 1914 Essanay western short.
Broncho Billy commits a robbery, but a preacher inspires a change of heart. A 1915 Essanay short starring Gilbert M. Anderson.
Chaplin spoofs the opera Carmen, with Edna Purviance as Carmen and Charlie as the lovesick soldier Darn Hosiery.
Chaplin plays a jealous wife who storms a parade and wrecks a film shoot, all in six minutes.
Chaplin and Mabel Normand swap partners and park-bench chaos in this Keystone farce, also known as Getting Acquainted.
Chaplin and Ford Sterling battle over a stolen umbrella and a lady stuck at a rain puddle.
Chaplin plays a waiter who poses as a foreign dignitary to woo a society girl played by Mabel Normand.
Charlie gets shanghaied onto a ship its owner plans to sink for the insurance money.
A park, a flirtation and a lake. Chaplin's Keystone short where everyone ends up in the water.
Chaplin and a dummy in a French-titled print of the 1914 Keystone short Mabel's Married Life.
Charlie Chaplin runs a theater's backstage as a very unreliable property man. A 1914 short.
Chaplin plays a rich gentleman who thinks his romance is over and tries to end it all, with very comic results.
A barroom artist tells his tale of lost love, with Charlie Chaplin in a 1914 short.
Charlie Chaplin is a drunk in a bar with an eye for the ladies. A 1914 Keystone short.
Chaplin's first Essanay film: chaos on a movie set, with a young Gloria Swanson in a small role.
Charlie Chaplin dreams himself a caveman in this 1914 Keystone short.
Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp makes his first screen appearance, getting in the way of a camera crew at a kids' car race.
Charlie Chaplin as a dentist's assistant with a tank of laughing gas. A 1914 short.
Mabel Normand sells hot dogs at the racetrack with Charlie Chaplin on the scene. A 1914 Keystone short.
The first film Chaplin shot as the Little Tramp: hotel lobby chaos and a pajama-clad Mabel Normand.
Chaplin's very first film, as a smooth-talking swindler who runs afoul of the Keystone Kops.
Charlie Chaplin and a piano, never a good combination. A 1914 Keystone short.
Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and a mallet. A 1914 Keystone short about a love triangle that gets swung around.
Chaplin is hired to push a man in a wheelchair and goes looking for trouble instead.
Fatty Arbuckle steps into the boxing ring, with Chaplin as the referee and the Keystone Kops close behind.
Charlie Chaplin is the boarder the landlady dotes on, until the household turns on him. A 1914 Keystone short.
Chaplin plays an actor fired from a film studio who sneaks back in disguised as a glamorous woman.
Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle stumble home drunk in this 1914 Keystone comedy. Two husbands, two angry wives and a lot of falling down.
The first feature-length comedy: Marie Dressler, Chaplin and Mabel Normand in Mack Sennett's 1914 con-artist romp.
Charlie Chaplin is up to romantic mischief in a park in this 1914 Keystone short.
An early silent version of the Jekyll and Hyde story, from 1913.
Henry Ford's film collection shows America from 1914 to 1945, with autos, factories and everyday life as the Ford camera saw it.
Chaplin is hired to push a man in a wheelchair and goes looking for trouble instead.
Georges Méliès' 1896 trick film: a giant bat flaps into a castle and turns into the devil, and the magic gets busy.
A compilation of Chaplin's 1914 Keystone shorts.
A compilation of Chaplin's 1915 Essanay shorts.
A silent Western starring Tom Mix, from the early days of the genre. Horses, hats and a hero called Sage Brush Tom.
Walter R. Booth's 1901 British trick film: miserly Scrooge gets a visit from Marley's ghost.
Edwin S. Porter's 1905 chase comedy, in which a burglar makes his getaway by sliding down a rope.
Charlie Chaplin's Tramp crashes a soapbox race and won't stay out of the camera's way. Keystone, 1914.
A 1912 silent short, The Mender of Nets. A quiet seaside story, plainly told.
Two rival brothers both love Mary, and both enlist in the Union Army. A 1911 Civil War drama where love and duty collide at camp.
Theodore Roosevelt comes home in 1910 to a huge New York welcome, with Cornelius Vanderbilt and crowds at the Battery. A newsreel of June 18.
A moving tour through lively turn-of-the-century Southampton, shot from a tram in 1900.
Mounted police, marching bands, uniformed groups and carriages roll through Lowell, Massachusetts for St. Patrick's Day, 1904.
Rare footage tied to the Titanic story, including E.J. Smith on the deck of the Olympic, and the rescue ship Carpathia. A 1912 newsreel compilation.
The big steamer Coptic sits at a San Francisco dock operated by the Pacific Steamship Co. 1897.
Ten pieces of fire apparatus thunder toward the camera, some pulled by three horses abreast. Buffalo's firefighters at full gallop in 1897.
Long-horn cattle are driven through the Chicago stockyard gates in this 1897 view. A plain, historical look at the meat industry.
A Pacific Coast life-saving crew shows how a lifeboat is launched. A real demonstration of the work, 1897.
A man in a three-piece suit cheers his horse on at an imaginary race, jumping up and down. A 1900 pantomime of betting fever.
Commodore Schley's flagship Brooklyn glides by with a shot hole in her funnel and a tattered battle flag. A 1898 naval parade, battle-worn.
Three young women in frilly knee-length dresses and ballet shoes dance a quadrille on a stage with a black backdrop. Vaudeville, 1903.
Five performers in formal dress strut through a cakewalk, the fancy-stepping dance named for the prize. A 1897 vaudeville turn, with dated stage conventions.
Five performers in evening dress put on an exaggerated cakewalk, one in a long overcoat. A 1903 vaudeville turn, with dated stage comedy.
A dancer in a ruffled dress and sash twirls across a bare stage in this 1903 vaudeville turn. Pure ballet-slipper energy, no plot required.
A woman on stage is wrapped in two sheets of white fabric supported by poles. A 1903 vaudeville act captured by Biograph.
Two watchers drink and smoke at a New York tenement wake while a widow weeps. A 1903 Biograph comedy with a dated, stereotyped view of slum life.
A veiled woman on a park bench, a mustached man, and a prank. Biograph's 1903 romantic joke filmed on a painted stage.
The battleship Kentucky slides into the James River at Newport News, Virginia, in 1898.
Well-known horsewomen and their mounts ride before the judges' stand at the Open Air Horse Show, Manhattan Field, New York, 1899.
A herd of cattle is driven toward grazing land in Bliss, Oklahoma Territory, in 1904. Dust, hooves and plenty of cows.
A stage cyclist rides circles backward and forward, then rears up and spins the front wheel. An 1899 trick-riding act, no helmet in sight.
A rural postal exchange: a boy waits by a post box in front of a two-story house in Maryland as mail is handed over. A 1903 Biograph slice of country life.
An old gentleman fights his razor and loses his patience. Edison's 1900 gag is a comedy of facial expression, all in one shot.
The crowd, the start and the finish of a 1897 harness race at Charter Oak Park, with the fastest trotters of the day on the track.
Contractor Hiram goes for a glass of milk and is mistaken for a laborer by Sophia, while he thinks she is the maid. A 1910 mix-up comedy.
After the launch of the Japanese warship Chitose in San Francisco, a pleasure yacht cruises past in the foreground. An 1898 Edison actuality.
The Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser Chitose slides down the ways at a San Francisco shipyard on January 22, 1898.
Four-horse coaches and carriages, packed with tourists, line up at the Hotel Vendome in San Jose for the trip to Lick Observatory.
A bearded peddler hawks his goods on a New York street, and a gesture turns into a fight. A staged 1900 comedy, with ethnic humor that is dated.
Crissie Sheridan floats through a skirt dance in a white gown, her arms swirling the fabric into circles and patterns. Vaudeville, 1897 style.
A well-dressed couple order boiled eggs and Welsh rarebit in a fashionable cafe, and the food starts to misbehave. Edison's 1900 trick comedy.
The Coptic plows head-on through heavy seas as the water breaks over her prow. A stormy ocean voyage, 1898.
Vaudeville duo Hart and DeMar play comic-strip favorites Foxy Grandpa and Polly in a stage bit of mischief.
Soldiers pack ammunition onto mules on a Cuban beach, with transport ships on the horizon. 1898.
A horse-drawn Broadway streetcar rolls through Union Square while pedestrians cross and passengers hop on and off. New York in 1903, at horse speed.
A dressmaker disassembles a dummy, and onlookers mistake his shadows for a brutal murder. A 1915 Mack Sennett comedy with Louise Fazenda.
The steamers Teutonic and Nordland head out of New York Harbor at full speed, 1902, with water dashing at their bows.
Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay, filmed at Gibraltar on his way home in September 1899.
Two men insist on being polite to each other in a saloon, after the comic strip. Biograph's 1903 bit of courtesy turned into slapstick.
Prince Henry of Prussia and President Roosevelt walk up the gangway on Shooters Island for the christening of the German Emperor's yacht. 1902.
Cleveland's fire department rolls out of the engine house while spectators line the street. Likely a drill, but a crowd-pleaser all the same, in 1903.
Elephants, camels and floats parade through a circus tent, then a horse race takes over. Edison's 1901 view of the Forepaugh and Sells Bros. circus.
Gus Keller, Novelty Bag Puncher, pummels a speed bag on a painted forest stage. A 1903 vaudeville turn, fists flying.
A baker flings dough at a make-believe rat and the kitchen chaos takes off. Edwin S. Porter's trick-film comedy.
Prize horses from all over North America parade along the Esplanade of the Pan-American Exposition in 1901.
A boxer dog sits on a stage and punches a bag like a pro. Edwin S. Porter films Miss Laura Comstock's bag-punching dog.
A staged street-tough dance from 1902, a man and woman in ragged clothes, filmed by Biograph. It is rough, and a dated take on slum life.
About thirty men and boys sort paper refuse into sacks at a New York City incinerating plant, 1903. Gritty city life on film.
Immigrants line up on Ellis Island, then another group arrives at the dock. A 1906 glimpse of one of America's busiest gateways.
Racing cars roar around Long Island in the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup, filmed from three spots on the course by Edison cameramen.
A combined dog and bologna machine grinds away in a factory where each frankfurter is labeled by breed. Edwin S. Porter's 1904 gag.
The hearse leaves the McKinley home in Canton as the Cabinet, admirals and generals line up. A solemn piece of 1901 news.
The funeral procession of President McKinley arrives at Westlawn Cemetery in Canton, Ohio. A solemn 1901 newsreel moment, filmed by Edison cameras.
President Theodore Roosevelt eats, then speaks to a crowd gathered for the Fourth of July. The party leaves by horse-drawn carriage. 1903.
A Biograph melodrama: a Sioux woman follows a white man to a small house and starts a family. A dated 1909 story, with white actors in Native roles.
Mazie lends her gold necklace to Nellie, who loses it, and her boyfriend Sam promises to replace it. A 1910 Biograph comedy of errors.
A real newspaper personals ad sends a French nobleman to Grant's Tomb to find a rich American wife, and the chase is on.
An elderly widower takes rooms at a seaside boarding house and falls for the widow, but frets about his thinning hair. A 1912 romantic comedy.
Political club members bribe a sculptor to carve their favorite bust, and he spends the money on dinner. A 1908 stop-motion caricature, full of period politics.
King Ambrose picks a queen, and a young rival named Robin tries to steal her. A 1915 Keystone comedy of kings and mischief.
Ambrose gets fired by a garment factory owner and turns vengeful, with a kidnapping that goes wrong. A 1915 Keystone comedy.
Buster Brown wants a cruller, Bridget says no, and Buster hauls over a stepladder anyway. A 1904 comic short.
Buster Brown and his dog Tige cause trouble when a fancy gentleman stops to chat with Mama outside a hat shop. Pranks, 1904 style.
An 1896 short of a mother scrubbing a struggling child in a tub of suds. A staged gag of its day that leans on dated stereotypes.
Amy Muller dances a fantastic toe dance, a hand-colored favorite of 1896. A vaudeville moment on early film.
Lakota dancers sway to a hide drum in a 1894 W.K.L. Dickson film made for the Edison studio. Eleven dancers, a mallet beating in the corner of the frame.
A marching band led by its leader, from the show Milk White Flag. An 1894 Edison view of a stage number.
Edwin S. Porter's 1903 railroad comedy opens at a grand station where a pretty girl in white waits on her trunk for a train. A parody of rail romance.
A lawyer sobs and hugs his client, and the prisoner picks his watch and chain. A 1906 Pathe comic short about courtroom sympathy.
A man afraid of the flu microbe sprays everyone he meets, police included, until the angry mob chases him. A 1908 Pathe chase comedy.
A woman and her mother bring a little dog home from a dog shelter in Gennevilliers. A 1908 Pathé comedy.
Four men with toothaches wait at a dentist's, and when one has a tooth pulled, the rest try to run. A 1907 Pathe trick film.
A camel caravan up the Nile meets a tribe of Bicharyn Arabs who perform and show off their children. A 1908 Pathe travelogue with an outsider's eye.
Men hop along in a potato sack race while women, children and dogs cheer them on. An 1896 Lumiere comic race.
Performers from Buffalo Bill's Wild West show dance for a French camera in this 1896 short. A staged show piece, dated in its portrayals.
A religious procession in Seville and bullfights in Seville, Béziers and Nîmes, shot in the late 1800s. French camera, Spanish scenes.
A flower parade in Montreux in 1897: donkeys and carts covered in blossoms, floats and bicycles. Part three of the series.
A flower parade in Montreux in 1897: carts and donkeys covered in blossoms, horse-drawn floats, bicycles and people in local costume.
J. Stuart Blackton draws a parade of faces, including a man with an umbrella and a clown, and they start to move.