Works by James Williamson (4)

Attack on a China Mission

A short reenactment of a Boxer attack. Full description from BFI at http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/520615/index.html

Stop Thief!

Thief steals, boy and dogs chase. All end up in a barrel. Ends abruptly, as if ending was lost. One of the earliest known surviving chase films, it's a good film to show critics that claim that movies have degenerated into gratuitous violence: this shows violence was there from the beginning. Strips the dude's clothes off, and then goes down to the mud to wrestle with him - kinda kinky...

Fire!

Read the title - that's all you need to know.

Note the exclamation point (also in the title of the other Williamson film that was shown with this one: Stop Thief!). These titles are shouting and, though short, their feeling is strong.

This is one of the most influential of surviving early action films, and it is easy to see why: it begins in a blaze and the momentum never eases. Cutting from the blaze to the approaching fireman and then back again, the film solidly establishes the drama of rescue - a drama device whose popularity still shows no sign of decline.

Was remade for Edison as Edwin S. Porter's (less exciting) 1903 Life of an American Fireman, which led to Porter's 1903 blockbuster The Great Train Robbery.