Stories of Cinema

Workers leaving the Lumière factory for lunch in Lyon, France in 1895; a place of great photographic innovation and one of the birth places of cinema.

The photographers who need to participate in the congress of Lyon get off a boat in Neuville-sur-Saône, dividing to the right and left.

As part of a maiden public film screening at the Salon Indien, on December 28, in Paris, Auguste Lumière pivots the centre of attention around his baby daughter, as he tries to feed her from a spoon.

Short that depicts a moment at the busy Cordeliers' Square in Lyon. It is a busy thoroughfare, with pedestrians walking in front of the buildings and crossing the boulevard between horse-drawn vehicles. A double-decker bus passes in front.

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

A fairy appears on screen in the middle of a vegetable garden, giving birth to a baby dug out from the cabbage patch. A burlesque variation on the myth that, in France, babies are born from cabbages.

In one glorious point-of-view shot, a vehicle dashes full-speed into an ill-starred passer-by.

A group of astronomers go on an expedition to the Moon.

A group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.

A fireman rushes into a carriage to rescue a woman from a house fire. He breaks the windowpanes and carries the woman to safety; after dangerous and uncertain moments he also saves the woman's son.

A British trick film in which a motorist ends up driving around the rings of Saturn.

The fiend faces the spectacular mind-bending consequences of his free-wheeling rarebit binge.

As an older man and a youth are eating at the table, the older man decides to amuse himself by using pepper to make the boy sneeze. Later, the boy retaliates by sneaking into the older man's room and putting pepper in his handkerchief, hairbrush, and clothing. But things quickly get out of hand when the sneezing that results begins to disrupt the whole town.

The first all-animated film in history, a series of scenes without much narrative structure, but morphing into each other.

It is just a few moments before the ball, and the beau, by his strenuousness in dressing, has torn a huge rent in the seat of his only pair of trousers. Hastily seizing a needle and thread, he tries to sew them while on his person, and just manages to get a few stitches in; thus depending only on his own ingenuity, he decides to go to the function. He does well by summoning a cab. He reaches his destination all right, and is next seen in the reception room, where he uses a cushion to shield the faulty spot, bowing to right and left, but holding fast to the cushion. Going to the buffet with a lady, he keeps a chair close to the rent, and when an obliging waiter takes this from him he frantically grabs a platter and manages to cover up. But in the ballroom he dances with a handkerchief trailing gracefully behind him; finding this protection meager, however, he appropriates his partner's fan for the purpose. His downfall comes only when the lady asks him to tie her shoe lace. He is stunned by the request, but pulls himself together and makes a daring attempt to oblige one-handed; but this feat being impossible he gives up, and the guests discover the tear. The beau sits on the floor in despair, but too late, for all are already gathered round him, and 'mid much laughter and ridicule he succeeds in dashing out of the room without turning his back toward the company.

A housewife tires of her husband's annoying behavior and returns to her mother. At first, the husband is quite pleased to have the house all to himself. But he quickly discovers that even the most basic domestic chores can be fraught with difficulty.

An upper class drawing room. A gentleman breaks the curtain pole and goes in search of a replacement, but he stops into a pub first. He buys a very long pole, and causes havoc everywhere he passes, accumulating an ever-growing entourage chasing him, until he escapes them through a bit of movie magic, only to discover that the pole has already been replaced.

A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home.

"Percy Smith (1880-1944) was world famous as a photographer of plant life. Probably the first British example of time-lapse photography as applied to the growth of plants." Montly Film Bulletin, November 1955

Mr Beetle seeks companionship from a statuesque dragonfly dancer, unaware that her ex-boyfriend, a slender grasshopper and an industrious cameraman, watches their every move. Will Mrs Beetle forgive him? Will he get away with adultery?

A hungry mosquito spots and follows a man on his way home. The mosquito slips into the room where the man is sleeping, and gets ready for a meal. His first attempts startle the man and wake him up, but the mosquito is very persistent.

Robinet's wife loves him so much she wants to do everything for him, including hold his newspaper for him and accompany him everywhere.

"Wild Bill" Gray is a renegade and a wife-beater. He is about to start on some expedition of crime and his wife implores him to stay at home. She receives a beating for her trouble. Jim, a cowboy, rides past the shack, hears Mrs. Gray's screams and interferes, and takes Mrs. Gray over to his friend, the postmaster, so that she may have a good home. "Wild Bill" plans vengeance. Paxton, the postmaster, starts for the station with money and gold, and is accompanied a short way by Jim. Gray sneaks after them. After going with Paxton a short distance, Jim takes a turn in the road and Paxton rides on alone. Gray closes up on the postmaster, gets the drop on him, but Paxton is quick and there's a hand-to-hand struggle. Bill, however, worsts Paxton, and finally sends him over a precipice. But in falling, Paxton falls into a tree and thus is saved from sure death. In the meanwhile Paxton's horse comes back to his general store. When the riderless horse arrives there is naturally considerable excitement. Gray arrives on the scene and he makes things look pretty black for Jim, the man who was last seen with the postmaster. Jim is placed under arrest, but the boys, as well as the postmaster's young daughters, May and Gladys, do not believe Jim to be guilty. May and Gladys ride the trail and finally find their father after he calls to them. Gray stoutly asserts his innocence and manufactures evidence incriminating Jim. May and Gladys, the "two little rangers," however, untangle the evidence and their father's story cinches things. When things begin to look pretty black for Gray he retreats to his shack. The girls, however, are determined to get him and, after seeing their volleys of bullets have no effect, discharge a firebrand from a bow. The firebrand sets the shack on fire and Gray perishes in his own tomb.

At a farm near Bangville, the young daughter see strangers in the barn. She quickly rushes to the house and calls the police. The police engage in a haphazard rush across the countryside to get there in time.