A Century In Video - 1924

The MGM lion understood in 1924 that there was no point in roaring. Who's going to hear it?



Except for the roar, the logo hasn't actually changed much over the years:



Leo the MGM lion actually started out in 1917 as the mascot for the predecessor company Goldwyn Pictures.

Here he is in 1923 the year before Goldwyn Pictures, Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures merged. I'm not sure if it's a half yawn or half assed snarl in this clip:



The lion logo has been parodied many times, mostly by MTM Enterprises:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show



Remington Steele



Newhart



St. Elswhere



And the depressing end credits for the last episode:

A Century In Video - 1923

Probably one of the earliest (If not the earliest) examples of a "making of" featurette.

This short details some of the trials and tribulations of trying to film a feature film in Death Valley.

The film they were making was 1924 Erich Von Stroheim's movie Greed based on the book McTeague.

"The plot follows an honest dentist whose wife wins a lottery ticket, only to become obsessed with money. When her former lover betrays the dentist as a fraud, all of their lives are destroyed."
(From the Wikipedia entry)

Out of curiosity I also watched this bit from the end of the movie:



Now I have a few comments:

• Yellow?


• For crying out loud, cut the dead guy's hand off


• If the horse / mule is dead. So is the canary

A Century In Video - 1922

Just in time for Hallowe'en I bring you a vampire classic.

Warning. This is the entire movie. So don't start if you don't have 1:25 to waste on a bald vampire.



Here is the Wikipedia entry.

And from IMDb.

Fun Fact!
If the lead actor Max Schreck was still alive, he'd be 129 years old. Of course since vampires are immortal, his age doesn't matter.

Happy Hallowe'en everyone, and watch out for the scary shit.

A Century In Video - 1921

[Butch O.'s Photos]

It's summer and a great time to travel. How about Egypt:



Interesting film with actually only one screen of the usual xenophobic / racist crap that is a bit too common with films of that era. Look for this title card: "They're a nice sociable little race"

Directly from the "lets all visit the cute little foreigners" school of thought.

Some nice footage otherwise.

A Century In Video - 1920 (A Departure)

I couldn't find anything I liked for 1920. But I did find this:
(sound not really needed, music in background is The Entertainer most famously from The Sting.)



Maybe I'm twelve, but I really loved this piece.

It's a high school project, but amazing good for such. Although I suppose high school kids are a hell of a lot more technically savvy than I was back in the 1880's1980's.

Genießen!

A Century In Video - 1919

[ Pat Peeve's photostream]

Note: Original clip was removed. I replace it with a Chaplin clip. It's from 1919. It has a car. Close enough.

Of course none of my text makes any sense now.

Whatever

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Here is a 1919 New York City street scene. Traffic was very chaotic.



I can't see any traffic lights in the film, although they were in existence by then.

If you look closely you'll notice that the cars have both right and left hand drive even though everyone drove on the right side of the road.

New York started driving on the right in 1804 but...

Early American motor vehicles were produced in [right hand drive], following the practice established by horse-drawn buggies. This changed in the early years of the 20th century: Ford changed to [left hand drive] production in 1908, and Cadillac in 1916.

Source

Admit it, even if they were slow and a titch drafty, wouldn't it be pretty cool to have just about any of those cars?

A Century In Video - 1918

A short film about the Utrecht fire department in 1918.



I had Google translate the blurb:

Portrait of the fire department of the city of Utrecht, in 1918 incorporated by Willy Mullens when he made a film about the city of Utrecht. Especially for the filmmaker rukte the fire department with major equipment and bluste a 'fire' in the Fruithal, then in the Vreeburg stood. It also contains images of the film first aid classes, rescuing victims with the help of a vangzeil and other spectacular brandweeroefeningen.

Well it kinda makes sense.

As you watch the video, answer me this question:

A Century In Video - 1917

Hot trendy fashion - 1917 style!



New handbag, or strangled chicken?



I guess they couldn't find her size. Notice how her foot is almost oozing out the sides of those painful looking shoes?



I finally got fluffy to stay!



This is my Walkin suit. My Christopher Walkin suit. It's torture to wear.

When you watch the video you have to wonder if A) The model was in a great deal of pain, or 2) They hadn't figured out the catwalk yet.
(And yes I KNOW Mr. Walken spells his name with an "E". Shut up already!)



New for 1917 - Acorns with mosquito netting.



Aways - Extra protection for your "delicate" areas.



Uhmmm, madam? Zee gown iz stuck in zee knickers.



And some things just don't change much over time. Take off the buckle and you could buy these now



And here is the actual video. I warn you, you will be in sympathy pain by the end.

A Century In Video - 1916

A bizarre little cartoon about Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse visiting the circus.



Krazy Kat was originally a comic strip started in 1912 but was animated starting in 1916.

I can't get a clear answer from imdB on exactly how many films were created, but it looks like lots! There is an imdB entry for the above film.

This Wikipedia entry has a tonne of info in you're interested, and YouTube has quite a few videos (although many are not relevant).

Maybe it's just me, but does Krazy Kat come across like a monkey channeling Zsa Zsa Gabor?

A Century In Video - 1915

Here is another Edison short. This one is 3:42 of people coming out after a show in the Claremont Theater in NYC.

This is the type of film I love finding - a little slice of everyday life.



Many of the theatre goers seem to be aware of the camera filming them as they leave, but since they are watching Edison films (perhaps even a few of the ones posted in the series), they may have been told about the camera. You'll notice a few people wave at the camera as they leave.

The clothing is, of course, very different than today. For one thing ALL the young boys are dressed in knickerbockers and ALL the women are in long dresses. But everyone acts pretty well the same as they would now for the same sort of "event"

If you take a closer look at the clothing you may note as I did that the clothing seems rather formal. Keep in mind that going to the movies was a big deal in 1915. Most of these people probably had never seen a film before.

Good news - the building is still around: Remembering an Architect Who Shaped the West Side

Here is a comparison. The old one is a screen shot from the film and the new one is from the above NYT article. (click to embiggen)



More info about the film via the Library of Congress can be found here

A Century In Video - 1914

Here we are in 1914, and needless to say it's all about war.

Well that's not strictly true. I did find quite a few Charlie Chaplin videos, but I'm trying to avoid using movie clips for this project.

So it's scads of material on WWI

So here is some really cheery footage:



I can't give you any details about this video. There are none on YouTube, and I have zero knowledge about military uniforms. I'm guessing that the guys in the shiny helmets are probably German, and some of the soldiers in the trenches look American - based on nothing at all, just a guess.

I'm hoping I'll find something else besides war footage up to 1918.

Oh well, have some comic relief:

A Century In Video - 1913

During the 1913 California State Fair a couple of locomotives were launched towards each other (on the same track) going 90 miles per hour.

I guess they wanted to see what would happen, the best reason to try anything I think.

Well what happened is they broke the trains.



There is a longer version on the Internet Archive courtesy of the Preminger Archives (For some reason I couldn't successfully embed the 2nd video)

I could imagine that if someone was on one of those trains (with a video camera from the future), it would have looked a bit like this:



The only info I can find informs me that this is a BNSF accident due to a switching error. The worst injury was a broken leg. I think the video camera died though.

If you look closely you'll see someone jump from the oncoming train at -24 seconds. I guess that who got the broken leg.

God I'm chipper tonight.

Ok. Fine. Have some cute. Seven minutes, 41 seconds of Cute Knut



Happy?

A Century In Video - 1912

Some days I just don't feel like myself...



Blurb from the YouTube page:

"Dr. Jekyll transforms to Mr. Hyde, and back again...from Thanhouser Company's 1912 production of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 classic novel 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'"

The Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc is a company dedicated to preserving old silent film with an emphasis on the films made by the Thanhouser Company. It is run by Edwin W. Thanhouser the grandson of filmmaker Edwin Thanhouser founder of the Thanhouser Company.

Here you can read a brief history of the Thanhouser Company, but basically it was a New York Film company that made over 1000 films between 1909 and 1918.

According to IMDb there have been 44 different versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made between 1908 and 2009. The 2009 version is currently in production and there isn't much info given, except (dear god) that's it's a musical.

And yup, it's based on a Broadway musical - here it is.

Wanna be tortured?



You couldn't pay me to sit through this.

<tangent>

I don't hate all musicals. I would love to see this one.

</end tangent>

Also: Have you ever seen the word Thanhouser used so often in one place? Any place?

A Century In Video - 1911

I don't watch a lot of sports on TV. In general I could give two crapolas about sports.

I do watch some of the winter Olympic events though. Such as skiing and bobsledding, (for the spectacular accident potential), and skating.

I watch most of the figure skating except ice dancing. Don't get me started on ice dancing. Either skate, or dance - pick one!

I found this video on Ulrich Salchow the creator of the Salchow jump

This video shows him demonstrating his self named jump for an audience in 1911.



Mr. Salchow won the first gold medal for skating during the summer 1908 Olympic Games (There wasn't separate winter games until 1924).

A Century In Video - 1910

I remember how much pomp and ceremony there was at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales ten years ago. Well it turns out that that was pretty standard (although there was quite a fight to give Diana a sorta, kinda, state funeral)

For this project's 1910 clip I present to you the funeral of Edward VII of the United Kingdom (1841-1910).

It's a short clip just over two minutes that shows some of the procession during the funeral and includes overlayed audio clips of Big Ben

A Century In Video - 1909

Without actually doing any real research (remember I'm not working these days) I would guess that this is probably one the earliest examples of Shakespeare's work on film.

Here is a scene from Act II, scene 1 of:


Courtesy of the British Film Institute


Note the special effects including stop motion, wire work and film overlay. I'm sure I'm not using the correct terminology - but again - not so much with the research.

A Century In Video - 1908

A fascinating early cartoon. The YouTube poster ClassicCartoon has this to say about the process:

"To make this film, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings." read more...

From the same filmmaker in a similar style. This one...

"illustrate the surealistic [sic] visions of a man under the influence of alcohol"

Ya that happens to me every time I have a drink.

A Century In Video - 1907

Just to reassure you, no you're not having acid flashbacks.

I present to you a dancing pig. Not a real dancing pig but a terrifically realist costume.

The description from IMDb has this to say:

This utterly delightful Pathé short must have produced a chorus of giggles from younger Parisian moviegoers. Released in 1907, the four-minute film presents nothing more than two dancers, passing through a curtain to perform on stage. One happens to be a pretty young girl dressed in the style of the Folies Bergère. The other is wearing an enormous tuxedoed pig costume, complete with large rolling eyes and protruding tongue... (read more)

I have no idea why this film was made, but I suspect that movies were still such a new idea in 1907 that anything that could be filmed (and viewed by an audience) was. Sorta like when I got my first scanner, I scanned everything in the house that would stay still long enough. Please note: Dogs do NOT like being scanned!

Well I hope you all enjoy this delightful little short film:

A Century In Video - 1905 & 1906

This film shows a trip down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905 and 1906 after the big quake

The filmmaker visited the city in 1905 and took a trolley ride down Market & then reproduced the same trip a year later. The editor of this short spliced bits of both films together to give the viewer an idea of how devastating the earthquake was.



Here is a slightly longer version of the 1906 portion.



Although the quake caused considerable damage, the majority was caused by fires, complicated by a lack of water due to broken mains.

Here is a pic from the wikipedia link above showing the damage:

(click photo to embiggen and see a LOT more detail)



It was take from a kite flown @ 2000 feet. Click here for more info about the photo.

A Century In Video - 1904

I'm the first person to admit that I simply don't get enough exercise. So I decided to check out some of those exercise videos that are all the rage with the kids these days.

I couldn't decide at first between all the different styles of exercise. Am I more of an aerobics type of gal, or perhaps tae bo is more my style? I finally decided that body-building would show off my "generous" attributes the best, and here is the video that convinced me.

You have to admit that this one isn't dated at all It could have been shot last week. Now all I have to do is find the right outfit.

I present to you Treloar and Miss Marshall

(Note: video is no longer embedable - click picture to watch on YouTube)