Language: Silent (123)

Sandow

Circus showman Sandow, credited with coining the term “body-building”, yawns while checking on his butt and underarm BO.

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

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.

A Terrible Night (Une nuit terrible)

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]

The Cook’s Revenge

The lighter side of beheadings. [Star Film 243]

Going to Bed Under Difficulties (Le Déshabillage impossible)

Man finds it impossible to undress for bed, because new clothes magically keep appearing on him.

In The Bewitched Inn (L'auberge ensorcelée) the man's clothes rebelled by politely departing from the room, but here the clothes aggressively refuse to leave his body, as new ones repeatedly replace the clothes that have been removed.

As in his 1896 film, A Terrible Night (Une nuit terrible) and 1897 The Bewitched Inn (L'auberge ensorcelée), there is no rest for the weary here.

This was remade several times, for example W.R.Booth's 1901 Undressing Extraordinary and Alice Guy-Blaché's 1903 How Monsieur Takes His Bath (Comment monsieur prend son bain). Its influence can also be seen in Tex Avery's 1952 animation Magical Maestro.

[Star Film 312-313]

How He Missed His Train

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

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.