Blwyddyn 1897

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

“This film is remarkable in several respects. In the first place, it is full life-size. Secondly, it is the only accurate recent portrait of the great inventor. The scene is an actual one, showing Mr. Edison in working dress engaged in an interesting chemical experiment in his great Laboratory. There is sufficient movement to lead the spectator through the several processes of mixing, pouring, testing, etc. as if he were side by side with the principal. The lights and shadows are vivid, and the apparatus and other accessories complete a startling picture that will appeal to every beholder.” (Edison Catalog)

The Flicker Alley DVD "Georges Méliès: Encore New Discoveries (1896-1911)" misidentified a partial hand-colored print of the 1906 film "Alchimiste Parafaragaramus ou La cornue infernale" (The Mysterious Retort) as this film, "L'hallucination de l'alchimiste" (An Hallucinated Alchemist) from 1897, which continues to be considered a lost film.

A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.

A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.

Wintertime in Lyon. About a dozen people, men and women, are having a snowball fight in the middle of a tree-lined street. The cyclist coming along the road becomes the target of opportunity. He falls off his bicycle. He's not hurt, but he rides back the way he came, as the fight continues.

Lasting for roughly 50 seconds, it shows the goodbyes of many passersby - first Europeans, then Palestinian Arabs, then Palestinian Jews - as a train leaves Jerusalem.

A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night's sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room--beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.

This film shot by Oskar Messter shows a visit by Wilhelm II the AG Vulcan in Szczecin, one of the then leading shipyards in Germany. On display are the Emperor and some military and civil dignitaries, who walk on the landing stage of the factory site on the occasion of the launch of the transatlantic speed steamer "Kaiser Wilhelm the Great" a group of spectators. In his memoirs Messter has described the motion picture as "the first good close-up of the Emperor."

A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès' accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.

Angelic and demonic serpentine dance from dawn of cinema. Hand-colored frame by frame. Lumière no. 765 or 765.1 (colorized, different dancer?).

A rocky sea voyage as reenacted by Georges Méliès.

“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.”

A man pulls a rabbit out of a hat. Available in a fragment in flipbook version only.

Staged assassination from the Lumiere company.

Women wash clothes in a washhouse on the edge of a river.

An officer calls his sailors to the deck. They assemble around the canon while the officer scans the horizon. They all turn in the direction of the camera to look in the distance. At the same time the ship is hit! This scene is a filmed reconstruction of the 1897 Greek-Turkish war.

Johan Carl Joensen, a Danish colonial manager in Greenland, drives his dog sled in Copenhagen’s Fælledparken. (stumfilm.dk)

A very heavy turret is transported on a truck drawn by a long line of horses. The inscription “Charlemagne 53790K” readable on the turret suggests that this view was shot in the vicinity of Saint-Chamond, a town where there are factories specializing in the construction of heavy steel. It is certainly a turret intended for the battleship “Charlemagne”. In addition, a view projected by the Aléthorama on January 20, 1898 in Saint-Étienne, and entitled “Transportation of the armored turret of Saint-Chamond by a team of 80 horses”, could represent the same event.