A fairy godmother magically turns Cinderella's rags to a beautiful dress, and a pumpkin into a coach. Cinderella goes to the ball, where she meets the Prince - but will she remember to leave before the magic runs out? Méliès based the art direction on engravings by Gustave Doré. First known example of a fairy-tale adapted to film, and the first film to use dissolves to go from one scene to another.
A film from Méliès has him playing a magician who does a few tricks including making a woman disappear.
Produced and directed by George Albert Smith, the film shows a couple sharing a brief kiss as their train passes through a tunnel. The Kiss in the Tunnel is said to mark the beginnings of narrative editing. It is in fact, two films in one, hence the 2 min length. Firstly, the G.A. Smith film here for the central cheeky scene in the carriage. The train view footage however is Cecil Hepworth's work, entitled 'View From An Engine Front - Shilla Mill Tunnel', edited into two halves in order to provide a visual narrative of the train entering the tunnel before the kiss and then leaving afterwards. More information about the filming of the phantom train ride can be found searching for the Hepworth film separately.
A little girl sits at a table, holding a container of what appears to be some sort of food. Suddenly there's a flash of movement: a tortoiseshell cat, with long hair and a very furry tail, has leapt onto the table.
A priest is officiating at a convent, when suddenly he is transformed into the devil, who frightens away the nuns and turns the place into pandemonium.
A train heads for a tunnel. In one car, a restless man smokes, and a woman is reading on the seat opposite him. In the darkness of the tunnel, he rises, crosses over to her seat and the two share a willing embrace and kiss. The train steams out of the tunnel toward us and past us. A Bamforth Films remake of George Albert Smith's The Kiss in the Tunnel (I) (1899).
A devil wearing bat-like wings and brandishing a trident dances around a giant pot, conjuring forth flame from his trident to lit a fire beneath the pot. After the devil works the fire with bellows, an angelic woman emerges from the pot. The devil and the pot vanish as the woman performs a dance, waving about her diaphanous sleeves until she conjures forth another fire, then she rises amongst the smoke into the air.
A magician produces a living portrait of himself.
A knight performs several magic tricks with a disembodied head materialized from a chalkboard drawing.
Some men get into hijinks at a sidewalk cafe.
Méliès appears as a court jester (a “triboulet” in French). He pulls 18th century noblemen out of a trunk and arranges them on a pyramid-shaped stage. Next, he transforms the gentlemen into fancy ladies.
Shows the interior of the cell of the Prison Militaire du Cherche-Midi, Paris, where Colonel Henry is confined. He is seated at a table writing a letter, on completion of which he rises and takes a razor out he had concealed in his porte-manteau, with which he cuts his throat. The suicide is discovered by the sergeant of the guard and officers.
Film produced by William K. Dickson’s British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
A clergyman is startled by a group of automatons.
"An interesting exhibit by Hadji Cheriff, of the original Midway Plaisance. Twirls his rifle over his shoulder, behind back, under leg, both hands and one hand."
The first movie ever censored for political reasons. The title refers to the then contemporaneous Dreyfus affair in which a Jewish military officer was falsely convicted of treason, and it was alleged that he was framed due to anti-semitism.
A bearded man hangs up a wreath and, like any good magician, waves his hands inside of it and under it to show us it's only a wreath…
An embarkation reportage film from the Boer War, a popular film subject at this time. Soldiers with bicycles appear in this parade. The British Army began using bicycles from the 1880s, to expand from horse transport for men. Supplying bicycles to the the army was considered a positive business move for companies as they began to experience a public decline in sales once bicycles were no longer a novelty and inferior copies began to be marketed. Films such as this would have been seen as having a wider importance.
“Another exhibition by Prof. Leonidas' troop of cats and dogs. One of the dogs is shown stealing his dinner from the table in his master's absence. In order to cover his own crime, the dog places a cat on the table, where she is found when the master comes in.” (AMB Picture Catalogue, 1902)
Showing room at the military prison at Rennes in which Dreyfus the accused is confined. He is visited by his counsel, Maître Labori and Demange, with whom he is seen in animated conversation. A visit from his wife is announced, who enters. The meeting of the husband and wife is most pathetic and emotional.
