Lone Fisherman

While our photographers were crossing the Atlantic Ocean a most wonderful and sensational picture was secured, showing a storm at sea. The picture was secured by lashing the camera to the after bridge of the Kaiserine Maria Theresa, of the North German Lloyd Line, during one of its roughest voyages. The most wonderful storm picture ever photographed. Taken at great risk. (Edison Films, 1901)

Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster.

“Shows how a full carload of coal is loaded onto a vessel every thirty seconds at the great Erie Railroad Docks, Cleveland, Ohio. Great clouds of coal dust rise as each car is unloaded.”

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...

From Maguire & Baucus catalogue: A most amusing and life-like scene, in which a number of young ladies clad in their night robes, are seen engaged in a midnight frolic.

The Buffoons are artists in their line. They tumble in and out of trick doors, disappear and reappear in unexpected places in most unexpected ways. Sure to amuse the children.

White’s camera offers several 360-degree pans of views of the fairground, then amazes by tilting up and down the Eiffel Tower, and concludes with a stunning tracking shot to the highest point above Paris. Exhibitors freely grouped films into nascent narratives such as those displayed here. - Bruce Posner

The dancer Fatima, well-known for her dancing shows at the World's Exhibition in 1893, performs for the camera. She opens her act by twirling around a few times, and then she does the 'muscle dance' for which she had attracted considerable notoriety.

Another entry in Edison's "Southern Pacific Company Series", which pretty much had cameramen hanging around the train line just shooting anything they could.

Four men each hold a large slice of watermelon, and have a race to see who can finish eating first. All four move quickly, but one man seems to be pulling ahead of the others. Soon the contestants begin to hinder one another's efforts.

Shows a party of young people in front of a barn door, searching for the red ear, which is discovered, and the penalty exacted from one of the group who resists payment of the forfeit, thereby creating confusion and merriment. The group is animated, and is made up of real farmer boys and girls. During the progress of husking, the farmer arrives wheeling his little daughter to the sport on a barrow.

“A file of Spanish soldiers line up the Cubans against a blank wall and fire a volley. The flash of rifles and drifting smoke make a very striking picture.” (Edison film catalog)

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.

“The watchful father disturbs a dream of bliss, and the bucolic lover is taught a lesson. He made a great hit.” (Edison film catalog)

The wharf is crowded with live stock, and the huge derrick slowly drops the large box or sling into the bunch. Into this cradle a horse is led, and is slowly hoisted and swung over to the deck of the steamer. This picture is taken ten minutes before sailing time.

“Mammy is washing her little pickaninny. She thrusts him, kicking and struggling, into a tub full of foaming suds.” (Edison film catalog)