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Voidsville Follies

Language: Silent (114)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- Harry Warner, of Warner Bros. (1926)

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Showing 1-20 of 114 works

Tables Turned on the Gardener/The Sprayer Sprayed (L'Arroseur arrosé)

Lumière (production)

Language: Silent, released in Dec. 1895
Minutes: 1

Considered the earliest known instance of film comedy, and the first use of film to portray a fictional story. Also a seminal work in the field of Internet porn, as the first work in the older-male-spanks-twink genre.

Featured elements:

: comedy

A Terrible Night (Une nuit terrible)

Georges Méliès (director/lead)
Star (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1896, month unknown
Minutes: 1

Man's sleep disturbed by a giant bug. This gag is expanded in 'The Farmer's Troubles in a Hotel' (1902), then later refined in Max Linder's 1911 'Une nuit agitee' [Star Film 26]

Featured elements:

: comedy

The Devil's Castle/The Haunted Castle/The House of the Devil (Le manoir du diable)

Georges Méliès (director/lead)
Jeanne d'Alcy (lead)
Jules-Eugène Legris (lead)
Star (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1896, month unknown
Minutes: 3

The Devil plays tricks, some (bats, shifting furniture) later used in the 1902 'The Farmer's Troubles in a Hotel'. [Star Film 78-80]

Featured elements:

: fantasy; haunted house

The Tramp And The Dog

Selig Polyscope (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1896, month unknown
Minutes: 1

One tramp, one dog, one minute: decide for yourself the cinematic possibilities...

Featured elements:

: animal act; comedy; extended incident; tramp

The Bewitched Inn (L'auberge ensorcelée)

Georges Méliès (director/lead)
Star (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1897, month unknown
Minutes: 2

Traveler enters an inn to rest, but magically mutinous objects refuse to remain inanimate. [Star Film 122-123]

Featured elements:

: comedy; fantasy; haunted house; magical mutiny gag

Momijigari (紅葉狩)

Tsunekichi Shibata (director)
Onoe Kikugorō V (lead)
Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (lead)

Language: Silent, released in Nov. 1899
Minutes: 2

A record of the performance of two famous kabuki actors, the oldest known surviving Japanese film.

Featured elements:

: actuality and documentary; dance; fighting

How They Rob Men in Chicago

Wallace McCutcheon (director)
American Mutoscope and Biograph (production)

Language: Silent, released in Apr. 1900
Minutes: 1

Short and sweet: they just don't make 'em like this no more...

Featured elements:

: bad cop; comedy; corruption; crime; dark comedy; social commentary

Sherlock Holmes Baffled

Arthur Marvin (cinematographer/director)
Arthur Conan Doyle (author)
American Mutoscope and Biograph (production)

Language: Silent, released in May 1900
Minutes: 1

1 trick, 1 minute, 0 interest

Featured elements:

: detective; fantasy; home invasion

Attack on a China Mission

James Williamson (director)
Williamson (production)

Language: Silent, released in Nov 1900
Minutes: 1

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

Featured elements:

: action; anti-colonialism; armed conflict; China; extended incident; historical drama; home invasion; rescue; yellow peril

The Cook’s Revenge

Georges Méliès (director)
Star (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1900, month unknown
Minutes: 1

The lighter side of beheadings. [Star Film 243]

Featured elements:

: beheading; comedy; fantasy

Going to Bed Under Difficulties (Le Déshabillage impossible)

Georges Méliès (director/lead)
Star (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1900, month unknown
Minutes: 2

Man finds it impossible to undress for bed, because new clothes magically keep appearing on him. [Star Film 312-313]

Featured elements:

: comedy; fantasy; magical mutiny gag

How He Missed His Train

Georges Méliès (director)
Star (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1900, month unknown
Minutes: 1

Getting out of bed under difficulties...One man learns to embrace his Inner Slacker. [Star Film 322]

Featured elements:

: comedy; fantasy; magical mutiny gag

The Cabbage Fairy (La Fee aux Choux)

Alice Guy-Blaché (director)
Yvonne Mugnier-Serand (lead)
Gaumont (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1900, month unknown
Minutes: 1

A staging of the fairy tale of children born from a cabbage patch and a rose garden.

Featured elements:

: birthing; fantasy

Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel

Edwin S. Porter (director)
Edison (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1900, month unknown
Minutes: 1

Looks like an early version of Abbott and Costello's 'Hold That Ghost'.

Featured elements:

: comedy; haunted house

Histoire d'un crime

Ferdinand Zecca (director/writer)
Jean Liézer (lead)
Pathé (production)

Language: Silent, released in May 1901
Minutes: 5

Sometimes dead men do tell tales...In jail for murder, a man tells the story of his road to ruin from drinking - via a thought balloon on the prison wall, an effective early flashback technique. Then he is led off to a gruesome end. A noir tale without noir visuals.

Featured elements:

: addiction; beheading; crime; execution; flashback; home invasion; melodrama; noir

Stop Thief!

James Williamson (director)
Williamson (production)

Language: Silent, released in Oct 1901
Minutes: 2

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...

Featured elements:

: action; chase; extended incident; revenge; tramp

Fire!

James Williamson (director)
Williamson (production)

Language: Silent, released in Oct 1901
Minutes: 5

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

Featured elements:

: action; extended incident; rescue

The Countryman And The Cinematograph

Robert W. Paul (director)
Paul's Animatograph Works (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1901, month unknown
Minutes: 1

Considered one of the earliest known examples of a film within a film, the surviving footage is incomplete, missing both beginning and ending. Was remade by Edwin S. Porter for Edison, as Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show.

Featured elements:

: comedy; metatheatre

Undressing Extraordinary

Walter R. Booth (director)
R.W. Paul's (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1901, month unknown
Minutes: 3

Man finds it impossible to undress for bed, because new clothes magically keep appearing on him. Remake of 'Going to Bed Under Difficulties (Le Déshabillage impossible)'.

Featured elements:

: comedy; fantasy; magical mutiny gag

Uncle Josh At The Moving Picture Show

Edwin S. Porter (cinematographer/director)
Edison (production)

Language: Silent, released in Jan 1902
Minutes: 2

A remake of The Countryman And The Cinematograph (1901).

Featured elements:

: backstage; comedy; metatheatre

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Showing 1-20 of 114 works

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