Société Générale des Cinématographes Éclipse

To the rhythm of a frenzied choreography, acrobatic matches come to life on a black background. Leaving their matchbox, they line the film in circular, concentric movements. In an almost aquatic momentum, the squadron of little bits of wood mould the contours of a character, a run-of-the-mill smoker, before transforming into a funny harness. The film ends when the matches, again transformed, take on the appearance of a distinguished man who, after several attempts, finally finds a way of lighting his cigarette.

French adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”.

"A charming story of a young society girl and the pathetic love of a youth..." Considered a lost film.

Artheme takes his elderly uncle for a walk in his wheelchair, but abandons the invalid in the woods overnight when he spots a pretty girl. (MoMA)

The cyclist is dispatched upon an important errand, and his humorous and alarming adventures by the way form the subject of this series. Misadventure follows misadventure with great frequency, but the cyclist comes up smiling every time, mounts his machine, and again resumes his journey. Accidents which would maim or kill an ordinary mortal serve only to spur him on to fresh exertions in a mad search for physical inconveniences and dangers, which always present themselves. (Picture World)

An Émile Cohl animation short.

Charles Servaes as Polycarpe becomes an inspector of sort; he goes around measure the length of women's skirts in Paris to make sure they don't reveal tooo much leg for the moral Apaches of Montmartre.

Arthème loves playing the clarinet. He plays it in the streets, in the park, in the streetcar (at least when he does not miss it!). When he unfortunately walks under a piano clumsy removers are hauling, the heavy instrument falls down on him and he swallows his clarinet. A lot of people try to extirpate the protruding instrument but they all fail. Three farriers finally succeed in making him return to his former self.

The homeless Polycarpe steals a rifle from some careless society sportsmen and goes on a mindless shooting spree. (MoMA)

An animation where real life objects turn into animations.

The lighthouse keeper has an attack while cleaning the light. He makes his unsteady way down to the living quarters and collapses. While his wife tends him, their children turn the lights that guide ships through saf passage by hand.

Jeanne Doré becomes the accomplice of her son Jacques who unfortunately commits a crime to help his mistress, Fanny, find money.

Arthème decides to become a film projectionist.

Ernest Servaes and his wife leave their apartment, hoping to have a peaceful picnic in the green suburbs. However, they miss the train. Then the carriage they take turns upside down. Then footballers tromp over their picnic cloth.

The King drops dead, and the heir is his newborn son. Uncle Otto - with a name like that, how could they not know? - arranges to have the kid poisoned. However, she prays for her brother back, and being royalty, angels and G*d show up to grant her wish.

Artheme is fascinated when he sees a conjurer do some simple tricks with a magic wand, and so he steals it, proceeding to change a horse into a cow,an auto into a donkey cart,and a man into demon in a park.

A little man buys a paper and begins to read it as he walks down the street. It is so absorbing -- as the title indicates -- that he doesn't notice anything else. He knocks down streetlights and walks into women who stab him with enormous hatpins, yet goes on reading.

French horror short from 1911.