Electrocuting an Elephant

After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.

Made by the Edison Manufacturing Company and directed by Edwin S. Porter, the film starred Gladys Hulette as Alice. Being a silent film, naturally all of Lewis Carroll's nonsensical prose could not be used, and, being only a one-reel picture, most of Carroll's memorable characters in his original 1865 novel similarly could not be included. What was used in the film was faithful in spirit to Carroll, and in design to the original John Tenniel illustrations. Variety complimented the picture by comparing it favorably to the "foreign" film fantasies then flooding American cinemas.

On Christmas Eve, Santa feeds his reindeer and loads his sleigh, before going on his journey to deliver toys to the children of the world.

While in a park, a young woman sees her fiancé being quite affectionate with another woman. When she calls him on the telephone to demand an explanation, he tells her that it was his sister. She is not satisfied, and insists on coming over to meet his 'sister'. As the young man broods over how to get out of trouble, an old college friend comes over, and he offers to pretend to be the sister. At first this works, but soon it has created even more complications.

Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk. Borrowing on cinematographic methods reminiscent of 'Georges Melies' , Porter uses animation, double exposure, and trick photography to illustrate the fairy's apparitions, Jack's dream, and the fast growing beanstalk.

Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of firemen responding to a house fire. They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from the burning house. But wait, she tells them of her child yet asleep in the burning bedroom...

Chollie and George compete for a young woman's affection, using trickery and sabotage.

A woman goes to the dentist for a toothache and is given gas. On her way home on the subway she can't stop laughing, and every other passenger catches the laughter from her.

Two groups of young women get into a pair of horse-drawn carts, and go off for a straw ride through the snowy streets. As they pass by a group of children, the children throw snowballs at the riders, and they and other persons begin to join in the fun. Then one of the carts tips on its side, spilling some of its occupants into the snow. Everyone soon decides that they enjoy playing in the snow even more than riding.

A poor boy named Tom Canty and Edward, the Prince of Wales exchange identities but events force the pair to experience each other's lives as well.

A broken-hearted husband thinks about the past as he sits by the fireplace.

After her mother's death, Ruth struggles to support herself as a seamstress. While Ruth delivers shirts to the factory owner, the owner's son steals some money and Ruth is accused of the crime. She flees the ghetto of New York's Lower East Side and hides in the country where she meets a young farmer.

This holiday-themed melodrama released by Edison Studios in 1910 concerns Robert, a young man who leaves his mother’s home in New England to forge a career in the big city. When he achieves “fame and fortune” six years later, his proud mother can’t wait to welcome him home for Thanksgiving. Robert, however, intends to stay in the city to enjoy a holiday feast with his society friends and beautiful fiancée. When Mom decides to pay a surprise visit on Thanksgiving Day, she is saddened to find that her son is so ashamed of her that he relegates her to an upstairs room, out of sight and out of mind.

A French sailor, imprisoned for years on false charges of conpiring against the king, escapes and exacts revenge on his accusers.

Antonine, a worthless, good-for-nothing scoundrel, demands money of his cousin Galora, an energetic, provident husband and father. His demands are met with a positive rebuff, and when he becomes insistent be is forcibly ejected by Galora. As he leaves the tenement he vows to get even, and lies in wait until Galora has gone out on business. Climbing to the fifth floor, on which the Galoras live, he watches his chance, which comes when Mrs. Galora goes for an instant to visit a neighbor on the same floor. Darting into the apartment and raising the window he perceives the awful result of a drop to the ground, five stories below, and so evolves a plan that is dastardly in the extreme. Taking the infant child from the cradle, and placing it in a basket he lets it out with a short rope, the end of which he secures by letting the sash down on it, so that to raise the window would precipitate the baby to destruction.

A lost film. A man and a woman are shipwrecked on a desert island. It doesn't take long before they fall in love and, figuring that they would never see civilization again, declare themselves married and eventually have a child. One day, however...