The Impossible Convicts

It's a cute little trick film from Biograph, largely arranged by taking Billy Bitzer's footage of convicts and guards around the cells and running them backwards.... but, if you look carefully, not entirely.

The technique of making time seem to run backwards was a well-established technique in film production, and was frequently used to raise a laugh. That was, of course, an editing issue -- although at this stage, the various specialties of movie production were not as clearly separated as they might be today when listening to the closing music of the latest megasuperblockbuster. You may not know what a previs editor does, but it's good to know he or she gets a proper credit; likewise the producer's personal driver.

Anyway, it's a funny and confusing film as people run around backwards and forwards and escape and are recaptured, as if Escher were working in time rather than space.