A band-leader has arranged seven chairs for the members of his band. When he sits down in the first chair, a cymbal player appears in the same chair, then rises and sits in the next chair. As the cymbal player sits down, a drummer appears in the second chair, and then likewise moves on to the third chair. In this way, an entire band is soon formed, and is then ready to perform.
A man takes off his clothes in preparation for bed, only for new clothes to spontaneously generate, leading to comical consternation.
A series of fantastical wrestling matches.
The entire story of Christmastide is here depicted. The scene opens in a large boudoir of an apparently wealthy man's home. His children, assisted by their governess, are about to retire. Before lying down they hang up their stockings on the edge of the bed. The picture changes and night appears. We see the housetops of the town and angels are flying about depositing packages in each of the chimneys. (Edison Catalog)
A divinely inspired peasant woman becomes an army captain for France and then is martyred after she is captured.
A cartoonist defies reality when he draws objects that become three-dimensional after he lifts them off his sketch pad.
A child borrows his grandmother's magnifying glass to look at a newspaper ad for Bovril, at a watch, and then at a bird. The child shows grandma what he is doing. The child looks next at grandma's eye, then at a kitten.
A conjurer (along with two duplicates) conjure up (and then cause to vanish) a beautiful woman head-first.
A turn-of-the-last-century hand-tinted short, which features two women, Miss Lally and Miss Julyett, dancing at a ball. By the legendary French filmmaker Alice Guy.
A monkey wreaks havoc on a doctor.
In this subject a "comique eccentric" enters the drawing room inhabited by spirits. He tries to take off his coat and hat, but these garments return to his head and shoulders as soon as he takes them off. The chairs, his umbrella, his hat, etc., fly away in different directions and by various methods. (Star Film Catalog)
A machine churns out sausages on one side and spits out hats on the other.
Madame Ondine performs a serpentine dance surrounded by big cats.
The fairy at a cabbage patch hovers over the babies. This is a remake of Guy's 1896 film on the same subject, this time shot in 35 mm.
The picture opens with the Sultan lying down to rest on his luxurious cushioned couch. The scene changes to the grounds around the palace.
A family sits down to enjoy a meal that ends up being fraught with complications.
A trio of prankish boarders wreak havoc on their landlady and an intervening policeman.
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)
Possibly the first film to utilize the technique of focus pulling. A man kisses a beautiful and lively woman, then the image blurs and dissolves into a clear image of the man waking up to his nagging wife.
This very dramatic scene appears to come from the heart of the Boer War action, but on closer inspection it is clear that Joe Rosenthal staged this scene in South Africa with the help of a co-operative group of cavalry. Staged skirmishes like this were common at the time, with the bulky camera preventing more intimate acquaintance with the fighting.
