Gads 1903

After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.

This is the first movie version of the famous story. Alice dozes in a garden, awakened by a dithering white rabbit in waistcoat with pocket watch. She follows him down a hole and finds herself in a hall of many doors.

A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella.

A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.

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...

Mary Jane tries to light the oven. When she's unsuccessful, she plays around, getting black boot polish on her face. She mugs before a mirror. Then, it's back to work. When the stove still won't light, she pours in paraffin, winks at the camera, and lights a match. Kaboom! Is there any rest for the foolish, even in the grave?

The story of Jesus Christ, from the proclamation of His Nativity to His Ascension into heaven. Impressive staging and beautiful hand-coloring distinguish the film from its Passion-play counterparts; Its scale and dynamic crowds prelude the Italian epics to come.

Pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès performs his cine-magic act.

This is a film taken of the execution of Topsy, an elephant employed to help build Luna Park on Coney Island.

At the royal court, a prince is presenting the princess whom he is pledged to marry when a witch suddenly appears. Though driven off, the witch soon returns, summons some of her servants, and carries off the princess. A rescue party is quickly organized, but the unfortunate captive has been taken to a strange, forbidding realm, from where it will be impossible to rescue her without some special help.

A traveller is shown to a room in an inn. After a brief dispute with the hostess and a porter, he is left to himself. But strange things begin to happen in his room, and before long he has created a disturbance that has everyone running to his room to find out what is going on.

Pluto, having seen the earth, comes back home amazed at the success of that well-known dance, the "cake-walk." He has brought back with him two noted well-known dancers, who start their favorite dance amidst the flames.

The leader of a marching band demonstrates an unusual way of writing music.

Alone in his room at an inn, a lustful old man is haunted by spirits.

Stately scenes in India, likely filmed during the 1903 Delhi Durbar.

Georgetown, 1901. A silver-mining town at 8,500 feet near the crest of the Rockies. Hooked somehow to the rear of a four-car passenger train is a camera that pans the scenery and, when the train goes around curves, looks ahead to see the engine and passenger cars: the passengers wave hundreds of white handkerchiefs out of the train's left-side windows for the benefit of the camera. The town comes into view; the tracks are above the town, so the camera looks down on dozens of modest rooftops as it pans the area. (AMB 1901, copyrighted 1903.)

A witch curses a town's well.

A re-telling of the classic tale of Faust in all of two minutes by French filmmaker Alice Guy.

Film taken from a boat heading down the Hudson is shown at varying speeds, often giving a sense of rapid transit.

A simple scene of two rather flamboyantly-dressed Edwardian children attempting to feed a spoonful of medicine to a sick kitten. The film is important for being one of the earliest films to cut to a close-up, then back again to the same medium shot as before.