"Magic" film using the art of animation and stop motion to do a surreal experiment with paper.

Vesuvius erupts and people escape from a room as the ceiling falls.

The scene is a railroad track on the side of a steep mountain, with a tunnel in the background, toward which a train is running at a high rate of speed. At this instant the audience is appalled at the sight of a second train rushing out of the tunnel. Both trains are on the same track and traveling toward each other at a high rate of speed. They collide. Cars and engines are smashed into fragments and thrown down the steep incline. (Edison Catalog)

Two sports are seen drinking beer and arguing as to the qualities of certain prize fighters. They make a bet, and to prove it, each pulls his favorite pugilist from his pocket, and they set them on the table. A hot battle ensues, in which one of the midgets is knocked out. The sport whose favorite won the fight takes the money with a look of satisfaction, and replaces his man in his pocket. The loser looks very much disgusted as he picks up his man and puts him back in his pocket. Very mystifying.

A Swiss tourist knocks the head off a negro waiter.

A clerk, unable to stop playing the game of Diabolo, strays in and out of precarious situations while playing with the toy.

Animated film featuring the hand of Walter R. Booth drawing a coster and his donah who come to life and dance. The hand then crumples up the paper and dispenses it in the form of confetti. (BFI)

Here we present a picture that simply convulses an audience with laughter. The scene opens in the bedroom of a hotel. A traveler appears, evidently a "little worse for wear." After stretching and yawning, he proceeds to disrobe. He throws off his coat and vest, but to his surprise and anguish, he suddenly finds himself clothed in a continental uniform. He throws this off in anger, but immediately a policeman's costume flies on him. This is in turn thrown aside in great rage and he finds himself clothed in a soldier's uniform. At last, thinking himself successful, he makes for the bed and finds a skeleton complacently resting on his pillow. The bed suddenly disappears, leaving him seated on the floor, and great quantities of bed clothes rain down from the ceiling. The picture ends leaving the audience simply convulsed in laughter. (Edison Catalog)

On the roof of an ancient palace appear a young Knight and his lady. While they are making love an ugly old witch appears and is rather troublesome. The Knight commands her to leave, and when he is about to force her away she sits on her broom and rises to the moon. After disappearing she causes various hob-goblins to haunt the pair, the last of them stealing away the lady while the Knight's back is turned. The Knight, frantic with grief, is suddenly confronted by a Fairy, who presents him with a magical sword, and tells him that he can use it to regain the young woman.

A jovial looking man is seated nearest the window of a restaurant. He has just finished his meal and the waiter brings a glass of beer, and when he places the glass upon the table, lo, a little sailor boy about six inches high appears from the foam, and climbing down the side of the glass, proceeds to dance a sailor's hornpipe on the table.

An old proprietor is startled and haunted by the strange happenings inside his curiosity shop.

The Airship Destroyer is playing on the ever-recurring fear of invasion. All the same, the futuristic aspect of the threat makes it very original. For that matter, this film is subject to a particular destiny. Six years after being first shown, it is projected again in 1915. At that time, the terror of zeppelin air raids hangs over England. Several bombings claim very many lives in Yarmouth and King’s Lynn. London is also aimed at. It is only in 1917 that the creation of anti-airship incendiary bullets and of a special regiment in the Royal Air Force contains the deadly raids. 1,500 British subjects are victims of this modern war instrument foreshadowed in this film. The airships are made using special effects. The animation and the models are the work of a master: the underestimated Walter. R. Booth. Before even contributing to the early stages of cinema, Booth exercises his creativity and exuberant imagination as an amateur magician. From 1889 on, he produces films containing “tricks” that allow him to combine traditional drawing and animation techniques. His taste for science fiction feeds on numerous inspirations, particularly on the French Georges Méliès and Jules Verne. In 1906, Booth joins the Charles Urban Trading Company. This producing company favors films that cover news, travel, science and natural history. Its founder, Charles Urban, born in the United States to German emigrant parents, radically develops cinema in England. His company supports Booth who sets up his studio in his garden of Isleworth. However, after a few years, Booth gives up and takes on advertising. His work remains unfortunately ignored, as does the rest of his career. The original element is a dyed print on nitrate film base, which went from a private collection to the Deutsche Kinemathek in the sixties. It was reprinted at the Studio Cine laboratory using the Desmet color restoration system in 2003.

A magician performs tricks. First with a top hat, then with his audience.

Artistic Creation is a 1901 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a lightning sketch artist drawing a picture of a woman which comes to life piece by piece. The film, "is one of the earliest examples of a film about an artist's creations coming to life," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "a metaphorical cautionary tale about the responsibilities that should be borne by both creative artists and indeed the male sex in general."

A magical glowing white motorcar ignores policemen, drives up buildings, flies through outer space, and can transform into a horse and carriage.

Produced by the English movie pioneer R.W. Paul, this version of 'A Christmas Carol' is the earliest surviving adaptation of Dickens' work on film. The only known print, held by the BFI, is incomplete, but manages to tell enough of the story for it to be recognisable. This first cinematic excursion into Dickens' most popular tale was an ambitious undertaking at the time. Not only did it attempt to tell an 80 page story in five minutes, but it featured impressive trick effects, superimposing Marley's face over the door knocker and the scenes from his youth over a black curtain in Scrooge's bedroom. (Ewan Davidson)

A man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's stationary range. The cop runs after the cab, the woman dashes to the body. The cop brings back the driver; is the victim dead?