The Trick Cyclist

A magical glowing white motorcar ignores policemen, drives up buildings, flies through outer space, and can transform into a horse and carriage.

Robert W. Paul production, "The Vanishing Lady", 1897. A magician sits a lady under a rug and makes her disapppear, before she reappearing in a field, alongside an ass, and several other women.

A man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's stationary range. The cop runs after the cab, the woman dashes to the body. The cop brings back the driver; is the victim dead?

Filmed in 35mm and in black and white, this short silent film was produced by the English film pioneer R. W. Paul, and directed by Walter R. Booth and was filmed at Paul's Animatograph Works. It was released in November 1901. As was common in cinema's early days, the filmmakers chose to adapt an already well-known story, in this case A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, in the belief that the audience's familiarity with the story would result in the need for fewer intertitles. It was presented in 'Twelve Tableaux' or scenes.

A series of actuality films showing the procession to mark Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee.

An old proprietor is startled and haunted by the strange happenings inside his curiosity shop.

Dangled precariously off a boat, a baby falls into the river. Many people on the bank quickly scramble to its rescue.

'The White Eyed Kaffir' performs with top hat.

A Swiss tourist knocks the head off a negro waiter.

A 19th century wire-walker performs his stage act on a woman's clothesline. An early comedy by pioneer director Robert W. Paul.

A soldier and a serving-girl are courting on a bench. A fat old lady sits on the bench, interrupting them.

A panorama shot of the Norwegian town and harbour of Hammerfest. Believed to be the earliest surviving film of Norway.

The scene is a railroad track on the side of a steep mountain, with a tunnel in the background, toward which a train is running at a high rate of speed. At this instant the audience is appalled at the sight of a second train rushing out of the tunnel. Both trains are on the same track and traveling toward each other at a high rate of speed. They collide. Cars and engines are smashed into fragments and thrown down the steep incline. (Edison Catalog)