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.
A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.
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.
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.
A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.
Angelic and demonic serpentine dance from dawn of cinema. Hand-colored frame by frame. Lumière no. 765 or 765.1 (colorized, different dancer?).
“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 rocky sea voyage as reenacted by Georges Méliès.
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.
[…] by shooting the fish in a globular bowl, the Lumières effectively use a fisheye lens, which offers distortions. The history of cinema has witnessed a struggle between the objective and subjective camera and the optically distorting lenses like the fisheye lens has been a powerful tool for the subjective camera. Here it is at the start.
Two crooks throw a lady off a roof, and a hapless policeman tries to capture them.
A gardener is watering his flowers, when a mischievous boy sneaks up behind his back, and puts a foot on the water hose. The gardener is surprised and looks into the nozzle to find out why the water has stopped coming. The boy then lifts his foot from the hose, whereby the water squirts up in the gardener's face. The gardener chases the boy, grips his ear and slaps him in his buttocks. The boy then runs away and the gardener continues his watering. Three separate versions of this film exist, this is the third version.
Three military men, seen inside a fortification, are firing on an unseen enemy force. The call for reinforcements but ladders appear signalling the enemy is about to overrun this position.
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.
Women wash clothes in a washhouse on the edge of a river.
Loïe Fuller performs a serpentine dance.
A vaudeville routine: two denizens of the Bowery dance while under the influence. She's wearing a light dress with a full skirt. He wears a white sport coat and tie. Both have hats. On a small stage, she approaches him gingerly, leaning forward. He grabs her close, she leans into him, and he waltzes her around.
George Albert Smith's remake of Georges Méliès - Le Manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle) from 1896. This film is lost or never existed. Copies of it online are actually a Méliès film.
This legendary fight was filmed on March 17, 1897, using 63mm film that produced an aspect ratio of about 1.75:1. Using three adjacent cameras, Enoch Rector recorded the entire fight, simultaneously creating the world's first known feature film, as the resulting footage lasted over 90 minutes in length. About a quarter of the film survives today.
