1900s

Renée Carl stars in this lively slapstick silent short as a beautiful lady who causes distractions and accidents among the male population as she walks though the streets of Paris.

The first scene presents before the astonished eyes of the spectators a solid piece of marble, which the minute it is placed on a table seems to take life, and one can follow a snake-like line branding on the polished face of the stone the name of the house of Pathé Frères. As soon as this stone has been engraved, as by magic, a handsome young lady appears with a huge lump of clay covered with a cloth. As soon as the cloth is removed from the soft mass it starts whirling and turning as if stricken mad, and one is asking one's self what all the contentions are going to lead to, when the vague shape of an animal not yet discernible seems to appear, and before one has time to make one's mind as to the category of brutes to which it belongs one sees the form of a remarkably well made orang-utan modelled out of the clay, who calmly smokes his pipe. Then the statue is removed by the same winning young lady and another covered block of the same substance is carried forward.

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

Some gnomes are searching for a wonderful spider that weaves webs of golden coins. Intent on their search, they are unaware that their movements are closely followed by a poor woodcutter, who also penetrates into their caves when they have caught the spider and imprisoned it there. He watches the wonderful spider making gold and other articles with wonder and in this scene the moving picture camera has excelled itself in turning out some good tricks, and finally he steals the golden spider. (Moving Picture World)

A frog hops around a magic fountain.

The goddess Minerva is jealous of the young Arachne who is more clever it in weaving. Out of spite, Arachne Minerva rushed into hell, then transforms into a spider that will forever spinning its web.

A woman shows off her trained dogs.

A wonderful midwife helps a rich couple pick out a baby from her cabbage patch.

In a public place in Constantinople at the corner of a bazaar, the executioner is seated upon a stone and is resting from his daily labors while eating a crust of bread. Suddenly there come running into the place a lot of Turkish men and women preceding some Turkish policemen, who drag along four prisoners in chains. The policemen shut up the four prisoners in the pillory. Their four heads stick up through the huge plank, which is provided with four openings. One of the policemen urges the executioner to decapitate the prisoners. He accordingly seizes a mighty sabre and cuts off by a single stroke the four heads, which roll upon the ground.

The interior of a trolley car. A menagerie of passengers notices a foul odour, and pinpoint the source of the stench at a cheese saleswoman. The gendarmerie removes her from the trolley and drags her to the precinct.

The background of this picture represents a scene along the beautiful river Seine in Paris. A gentleman enters, and taking a blackboard from the side of the picture, he draws on it a sketch of a novelist. Then, standing in the centre, he causes the living features of his sketch to appear in the place of his own, which is utterly devoid of whiskers. The change is made so mysteriously that the eye cannot notice it until one sees quite another person in the place of the first. Again another sketch is shown on the board, this one being that of a miser; then an English cockney; a comic character; a French policeman, and last of all, the grinning visage of Mephistopheles. It is almost impossible to give this film a more definite description; suffice it to say that it is something entirely new in motion pictures and is sure to please.

1904 film by Georges Méliès

A Japanese-set magic show. There is a lot of visual trickery on display, ending with an amazing effect using reverse footage and superimposing/projecting images on top of one another.

The adventures of an inattentive man. He's at his kitchen table, reading. A woman brings his hat and points to the clock. He continues reading and pours coffee into his hat. He leaves, still reading, trips over a servant who's on her hands and knees cleaning the walk. He walks through jump-roping girls, runs into a mule, walks into the only other person on an empty street, and then walks into the path of a steamroller. Two cyclists approach his flattened body. Out come their air pumps, and soon our genial hero has set off again, nose in his book.

An inquisitor and two of his henchmen burn a woman at the stake. An angel intervenes.

A band-leader has arranged seven chairs for the members of his band. When he sits down in the first chair, a cymbal player appears in the same chair, then rises and sits in the next chair. As the cymbal player sits down, a drummer appears in the second chair, and then likewise moves on to the third chair. In this way, an entire band is soon formed, and is then ready to perform.

The Peek Frean biscuit factory, Keeton's Road, Bermondsey, South London. The boiler room generates the steam that runs the overall biscuit-making operation. Milk and flour is delivered and unloaded. The various ingredients are collected, weighed and mixed, and the resulting dough is rolled out onto trays. These are placed in the cutting machine to form the biscuit shapes, and then transferred to the ovens. After baking, women pack the biscuits into tins. The factory workers undergo a fire drill (with appliances) in the yard and have a lunch break. Empty biscuit tins are washed, and full tins are weighed, labelled and soldered for export. The tins are packed into crates and boxes and loaded onto a conveyor belt. Horse-drawn carts and vans are assembled and loaded. They transport the biscuits out of the factory for distribution to the outside world.

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 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.

This short film consists of a crazy old colonel being asked to entertain party guests about his exploits of daring. However, being a totally insane old coot, he runs amok acting out his war-time heroics--smashing and throwing everything in the room!