First Films

Attack on a China Mission is a 1900 British short silent drama film, directed by James Williamson, showing some sailors coming to the rescue of the wife of a missionary killed by Boxers.The four-shot film, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, was innovative in content and technique. It incorporated a reverse-angle cut and at least two dozen performers, whereas most dramatic films of the era consisted of single-figure casts and very few shots. Film historian John Barnes claims Attack on a China Mission had "the most fully developed narrative" of any English film up to that time. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

Herbert Beerbohm Tree made a silent film version in 1899 entitled King John. It is a short film consisting of the King's death throes in Act V, Scene vii and is the earliest surviving film adaptation of a Shakespearean play. King John is the title by which the earliest known example of a film based on a play by William Shakespeare is commonly known. Filmed in London, England, in September 1899, at the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company's open-air studio on the Embankment, it was a silent film made from four very short separate films. Each of those films showed a heavily edited scene from Herbert Beerbohm Tree's forthcoming stage production of Shakespeare's mid-1590s play, King John, at Her Majesty's Theatre London. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

This film begins with a Newspaper Headline announcing the fight. We see the fighters being fanned by towels (in between rounds) and then the fight resumes. Jeffries, in the light trunks, knocks down Fitzsimmons, in the dark trunks. The round ends and the fighters are again fanned with towels before the next round. There is no record of what round is seen in this film, however. What is known is the information given in the Newspaper Headline: The Bout took place on Coney Island Thursday, June 9, 1899, and it was a Championship fight. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

Early French Supernatural Film - The Devil in a Convent (French: Le Diable au couvent), released in the UK as "The Sign of the Cross", or the Devil in a Convent, is an 1899 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

A comic actor's transformation of six characters in six different hats. Louis Lumiere (1895) Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

“Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” was shot in 1895 but did not publicly screen for the first time until January 1896. The silent short film runs 50 seconds and depicts a train pulling into a train station in the French coastal town of La Ciotat. L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat (translated from French into English as The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat [US] and The Arrival of the Mail Train, and in the United Kingdom as Train Pulling into a Station) is an 1895 French short silent documentary film directed and produced by Auguste and Louis Lumière. Contrary to myth, it was not shown at the Lumières' first public film screening on 28 December 1895 in Paris, France: the programme of ten films shown that day makes no mention of it. Its first public showing took place in January 1896. It is indexed as Lumière No. 653. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

Experimental sound film made for Edison's kinetophone -- a combination of the kinetoscope and phonograph -- but apparently never distributed. The Library of Congress copy is silent. Features two men dancing to a violinist. Performer: W.K.L. Dickson or Charles D'Almaine. Camera, William Heise. Filmed ca. September 1894 to April 2, 1895, in Edison's Black Maria studio. OTHER TITLES Variant title: [Dickson violin] CREATED/PUBLISHED United States : [Edison Manufacturing Co., 1895]. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

The Magician 1898: This early short from Georges Méliès displays his wizardry with camera trickery, but seems to fall short in the department of a coherent storyline. A fascinating experiment with a particularly interesting (if inexplicable) transformation midway through. Georges Méliès 1898. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca

Pygmalion and Galatea (French: Pygmalion et Galathée) is an 1898 French short silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the ancient Pygmalion myth. Pygmalion, completing his statue of Galatea, is madly in love with it. To his delight, Galatea comes to life. When he tries to embrace her, however, she magically changes place; then her upper and lower halves come apart, much to Pygmalion's confusion. Galatea's halves join back together again, but just as he is about to kiss her at last, she steps back onto her pedestal and becomes a statue again. Georges Méliès 1898. Classic Clips https://classicclips.ca