Works featuring "action" (66)

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.

Life of an American Fireman

Prelude to 'The Great Train Robbery. Modeled after (but not as exciting as) Williamson's 1901 'Fire!', but the pre-classical instant replay of the rescue (providing both inside and outside views) can seem delightfully offbeat, even avant-garde, for modern viewers accustomed to the classical cross-cutting approach.

A Daring Daylight Burglary

One of the models for 'The Great Train Robbery'and 'The Bold Bank Robbery'. Also provides an early taste of the police procedural, in the form of a detailed rendering of emergency medical assistance for the injured policemen (a digression that, regrettably, breaks the pace of the chase).

Desperate Poaching Affray

'Alas, my hat...'. Desperate, gun-toting, upper-class posse chases desperate, gun-toting, hat-fetishist poachers.

Pioneering, popular, and influential, this is a fast-paced no-frills thriller. Fight scenes are not the stylized choreography of today, but rough-and-tumble brawls more suitable to men who are “desperate”.

The one distraction comes from one poacher's hat, that naturally takes flight in its own direction. Instead of leaving it behind, as his partner wisely did, the poacher repeatedly pauses from his flight to recover his beloved hat - leaving audiences with a clear message: crime in hats doesn't pay.

A Railway Tragedy

A petty crime that quickly escalates...

Revenge!

This revenge is not so sweet - quite nasty, in fact - showing that producers learned early that exploiting human fascination with viewing violence can be profitable.

1904 seems to have been the year that the fledgling film industry made an important but unheralded discovery: audiences also like to root for outlaws - even when they know those outlaws are doomed to fail.

Just look at Revenge, and compare it with another crime film by the same director, released just ten months earlier: The Pickpocket. Although the titles might lead one to believe The Pickpocket is a character study while Revenge is not, actually neither reveals anything about the protagonist.

But although both begin with commission of the crime that sets off the action, nothing in the portayal of the pickpocket garners audience sympathy for the outlaw or his crime. On the other hand, the protagonist of Revenge is shown committing his crime as a victim of betrayal, his life ripped apart by those in power and authority. Finally, the film industry had tapped into an archetype that cinema audiences never seem to tire of identifying with: the protagonist who feels wronged by the powers that be, so sets out for to make things right by slaughtering everything in sight.

The Hero of Liao-Yang

Boring film sparks an interesting mystery: where are the gooks?

Decoyed

A ragtag ruffian forces a 'young girl' to make money on the streets for him. Cleverly uses part of set as a substitute for a title card. But the timeline of events is not clear: all events seem to be happening in real time, but that would mean the 'Reward...Young Girl' poster appears less than a minute after her abductiom!

The White Caps

The two men renown as pioneers of early US cinema, Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith, shared another claim to fame/infamy: each created a work inspired by Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 The Clansman. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation was adapted from the stage version of the novel. Edwin S. Porter was inspired by the novel to create this film. According to Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company, Edison advertisements held a pro-vigilante view, proclaiming: A lawless and criminal element almost invariably accompanied the advance guard of civilization and to keep this element in check the law abiding citizens were compelled to secretly organize themselves for their own protection...We have portrayed in Motion Pictures, in a most vivid and realistic manner, the method employed by the “White Caps” to rid the community of undesirable citizens.

While the White Caps role here as Morality Police may seem relatively benign compared to the lynch justice in The Birth of a Nation, the book also points out: This film narrative exactly parallels an earlier account of “White Cap” activity in a turn-of-the-century newspaper. In the newspaper account, the tar clogged up the man's pores and he eventually died.

The Train Wreckers

After servicing her final two corporate customers, the engineer and the switchman, Rail Tramp Trixie finishes the shift on her day job and heads to the woods to unwind with her own kind. But seems The Boys had gotten tired of waiting and started without her, because she spotted them all in a circle - doing what The Boys do in a circle. So she just stood back and watched: she liked to watch. When The Boys were done with their fun, they surprised Trixie with her favorite fun - a little B&D...doggy style. Reenergized, she headed down to the tracks for her freelance gig, hawking her wares by waving her flag from down below, a signal that was well-known all along the train line. When a trainload of randy squares heading to a convention eyed her flag, they brought the train screeching to a halt - and Trixie scored big-time. “All aboard!”

All around those parts, wives all agreed: of all the loose ladies, nobody could wreck a train trip like Rail Tramp Trixie.