Mode Reville (1929)

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Finlandia

A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.

Carmencita

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

La remise des décorations

Plot unavailable

Man with a Movie Camera

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.

Sperduti nel buio

Documentary about the lost 1914 film "Sperduti nel buio". Film historian Denis Lotto journeys across Europe following the trail of the lost movie.

Häxan

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

Celebration

A documentary on Yves Saint-Laurent and the legendary fashion designer's final show.

Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze

A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the second motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States.

Playing Cards

Three friends are playing cards in a beer garden. One of them orders drinks. The waitress comes back with a bottle of wine and three glasses on a tray. The man serves his friends. They clink glasses and drink. Then the man asks for a newspaper. He reads a funny story in it and the three friends burst out laughing while the waitress merely smiles.

Panorama from Top of a Moving Train

With the cameraman atop a moving train car the viewer is given a one minute glimpse of a French urban area.

Manhatta

Morning reveals New York harbor, the wharves, the Brooklyn Bridge. A ferry boat docks, disgorging its huddled mass. People move briskly along Wall St. or stroll more languorously through a cemetery. Ranks of skyscrapers extrude columns of smoke and steam. In plain view. Or framed, as through a balustrade. A crane promotes the city's upward progress, as an ironworker balances on a high beam. A locomotive in a railway yard prepares to depart, while an arriving ocean liner jostles with attentive tugboats. Fading sunlight is reflected in the waters of the harbor. The imagery is interspersed with quotations from Walt Whitman, who is left unnamed.

Belfast, exercices de sauvetage

Belfast firefighters demonstrate a ladder.

Decease

Spring comes every year and brings us hope for recovery and development. But time is inexorable and fleeting. Not for everyone will come next spring ...

Serpentine Dance by Mme. Bob Walter

Mme. Bob Walter performs the serpentine dance.

Post No Bills

A soldier stands guard at a sentry box and leaves it unprotected for a moment, a moment that two men take advantage of to put up posters where it is prohibited.

Swimming in the Sea

Several little boys run along a pier, then jump into the ocean.

Fishing for Goldfish

A man, holding a baby up in his hands, is standing next to a fishbowl. The baby is trying, in vain, to catch a goldfish with her bare hands.

The Blacksmiths

While his aide continuously turns the handle of the bellows, keeping hot a small furnace in front of him, a blacksmith is pounding a piece of metal on an anvil, then plunges the shaft into a tub of water, causing a cloud of vapor in the process.

Snowball Fight

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.

Danse serpentine (Annabelle)

In a long, diaphanous skirt, held out by her hands with arms extended, Broadway dancer Annabelle Moore performs. Her dance emphasizes the movement of the flowing cloth. She moves to her right and left across an unadorned stage. Many of the prints were distributed in hand-tinted color.

New York Subway

The camera platform was on the front of a New York subway train following another train on the same track. Lighting is provided by a specially constructed work car on a parallel track. At the time of filming, the subway was only seven months old, having opened on October 27, 1904. The ride begins at 14th Street (Union Square) following the route of today's east side IRT, and ends at the old Grand Central Station, built by Cornelius Vanderbuilt in 1869. The Grand Central Station in use today was not completed until 1913.