Anno 1906

It's a society in which gender roles are switched. Will men stand to be unequal?

Just as Galeen and Wegener's Der Golem (1915) can be seen as a testament to early German film artistry, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolizes both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian cinema identity. Even more significantly, it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. However, only fragments of the original production of more than one hour are known to exist, preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra; Efforts at reconstruction have made the film available to modern audiences.

A live-action film adaptation of the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. This silent short film follows the established theme: the “Rarebit Fiend” gorges himself on rarebit and thus suffers spectacular hallucinatory dreams.

A cartoonist draws faces and figures on a blackboard - and they come to life.

A wall full of advertising posters comes to life.

Two travellers are tormented by Satan from inn to inn and eventually experience a buggy ride through the heavens courtesy of the Devil before he takes one of them down to Hell and roasts him on a spit.

A magical glowing white motorcar ignores policemen, drives up buildings, flies through outer space, and can transform into a horse and carriage.

The stations of Christ's life are segmented into a series of performative tableaux.

A lady uses her maid to lick her stamps, when an overtly excited man notices the maid, forcibly kisses her, and they wind up stuck to each other.

A penniless troubadour consults witch Carabosse about his future, but offends her by paying with a bag of sand. He evades the witch's revenge, and saves the beautiful princess.

Christian IX (b. 1818) died 29 January 1906. He was king of Denmark for 42 years. With his many family ties to the royal houses of Europe, he was known as 'Europe's father-in-law'. After castrum doloris in Christiansborg church, the coffin was transported by train to Roskilde cathedral, where Danish monarchs are laid to rest.

A Trip Down Market Street is a 13-minute actuality film recorded by placing a movie camera on the front of a cable car as it travels down San Francisco’s Market Street. A virtual time capsule from over 100 years ago, the film shows many details of daily life in a major American city, including the transportation, fashions and architecture of the era. The film begins at 8th Street and continues eastward to the cable car turntable, at The Embarcadero, in front of the San Francisco Ferry Building. It was produced by the four Miles brothers: Harry, Herbert, Earle and Joe. Harry J. Miles cranked the Bell & Howell camera during the filming.

A pregnant woman steals things from others on account of her cravings.

A young couple conducts a series of robberies, followed by a chase, in which they are shot and killed.

The legend of Aladdin and his magic lamp: Aladdin finds a magic lamp which brings him wealth, luxury, and marriage to a princess. But his rival, an evil magician, steals the lamp for himself. Aladdin must regain the lamp or lose everything.

A wizard sleeps at a table in his well-appointed sitting room. From a drawer in the table, a snake appears.

Robert Macaire (Chevalier Macaire) was a noted criminal and assassin who appears in French plays. His name is renowned in French culture as that of the archetypal villain.

An entomologist guilty of trying to capture rare insects is condemned to be pinned on a giant cork.

Two groups of young women get into a pair of horse-drawn carts, and go off for a straw ride through the snowy streets. As they pass by a group of children, the children throw snowballs at the riders, and they and other persons begin to join in the fun. Then one of the carts tips on its side, spilling some of its occupants into the snow. Everyone soon decides that they enjoy playing in the snow even more than riding.

This is a compilation of some of the films that Alice Guy filmed in Spain from mid-October to the end of November, 1905 (catalogue numbers 1371 to 1384) that were eventually released in early 1906.