Thought some of you might enjoy this link, to Edison films of the 1890s and early 1900s. “The Gay Shoe Clerk” is a hoot, but sadly they don’t have “The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog.”
Enjoy!
Thanks for the link Eve, there are real gems there. Stuff like this makes a cable modem worth worth the expense. I’m downloading the .mpg of Boxing Cats as soon as I get home.
Ah, the American Memory site! I love that place! I downloaded a fine-looking 1886 perspective map of the town of Haydenville, Massachusetts from there and have it as my wallpaper. Brings back many memories, it does.
The early movies section is a hoot! There’s one Edison movie in there about a Dog Factory, partially featuring a Boston Terrier trying to eat the sausages hanging on the wall. Mrs. O and I watched it at home and we couldn’t help narrating the BT’s part: “Hey, whatcha doing? Is that a sausage? Wow, why are you guys fighting? Hey, is that a sausage? Can I have some? What’s going on? Is that a sausage you got there?” Then we rolled around on the floor and laughed.
Eve, I already knew you were cool 'cos you write books and you’re classy, but my book now has a couple extra marks for style next to your name.
I heartily endorse Eve’s recommendation of this site - not only the movies section but the whole thing. It rocks!
Thanks, guys, glad you like it! You can have “Schindler’s List,” give me “Aunt Sally’s Wonderful Bustle” anytime.
—“The Vitagraph Girl”
I now have a continuous tape loop of the epic Loading Ammunition on Mules, Cuba as my screensaver.
Thanks, Eve!
Glad you enjoy the mules, Ike.
Give me the red-hot uncensored sex of “Seminary Girls” or “Sandow.”
Yow!
Ike - How did you make your screen saver?
I have a feeling Ike is yanking our respective chains.
If he were going to make a screensaver, it would be of those “Seminary Girl” having their “midnight frolic.”
Pssssssssstt…Padeye! I was lying!
Eve bet me seven dollars and lunch that she could start a thread about stuff so obscure that it would get even fewer responses than my now-infamous “Henry Darger” thread over in IMHO. So I’m doing my best to bump this baby up.
I can taste those burritos already.
What they don’t have is the propaganda piece where Edison electocutes an elephant to show the dangers of alternating current. Or was it DC?
…But you can see it here.
Geez. I forgot how heartbreaking it is.
Yeah, “Electrocuting an Elephant” was pretty good, Sofa.
But remember when Edison was patenting his new Electric Club and made the film “Clubbing Fluffy Bunnies?”
Now, THAT was a laff riot.
“And the Academy Award for Most Viciously Cruel Film of Animals Dying goes to…Thomas Alva Edison” Too bad he couldn’t hear the applause.
There were a ton of those kind of films around at that time. Film wasn’t designed for the upper classes, it was made by and for the poor. So specticle was a big deal. Animal snuff films were hugely popular. Why watch a film of an elephant, when you can watch one getting shocked to death?
And don’t give ol’ Edison TOO much credit/blame for these. He just owned the studio. Sure, he put his name all over everything, but he didn’t direct them.
By-the-by, Eve, I’m in a silent cinema class, and thought of you while watching the Perils of Pauline. Just seemed to be your era. 
Oooh, Swimming, if you need any help on the finals . . .
I love “Perils of Pauline” (yes, I have it on video). Isn’t Pearl White great? Very modern. She plays an adventurous woman who doesn’t want to settle down and marry, but wants to fly planes and go exploring—why do people think all silent heroines were either flappers or vamps?
Hmmm . . . I oughta be teaching that course—ask your prof how much he gets paid! Also ask him what serial came BEFORE “Pauline.” It was Kathlyn Williams in "The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913).
For the audio equivalent, try the archives at Tinfoil.com, a site devoted to the preservation of the archaic audio recorded on Edison wax cylinder records, circa 1888-1910. They have some great old stuff including music, comedy and oration (William Jennings Bryan!) that no doubt created the world’s first couch potatoes. Check out their home page for everything you wanted to know about wax cylinder records, and purchasing CD’s reproduced from them.
Eve, you do know it’s available on DVD, don’t you?
Eve (and all other classic film lovers),
I figured you might want to know about a new 4-disc DVD out called Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films, a compilation from the contributions of 18 different American Film Archives. Though some of the films are as recent as 1985, these are some of the early silent films included:
Blacksmithing Scene (1893), first U.S. film shown publicly.
Luis Martinetti, Contortionist (1894), peepshow kinetoscope of the Italian acrobat made by the Edison Co.
Caicedo, King of the Slack Wire (1894), the first film shot outdoors at the Edison Studios.
Demolishing and Building Up Star Theatre (1901), the time-lapse demolition of a New York building, preserved from a paper print.
The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903), comic sketch with celebrated early editing.
Move On (1903), Lower East Side street scene, preserved from a paper print.
Dog Factory (1904), trick film about fickle pet owners, preserved from a paper print.
Interior New York Subway, 14th St. to 42nd St. (1905), filmed by Biograph’s Billy Bitzer shortly after the subway’s opening.
Three American Beauties (1906), with rare stencil color.
The Thieving Hand (1908), special-effects comedy.
Princess Nicotine (1909), special-effects fantasy of a tormented smoker, by the Vitagraph Company.
White Fawn’s Devotion (1910), probably directed by James Young Deer and the earliest surviving film by a Native American.
The Lonedale Operator (1911), D.W. Griffith’s race-to-the-rescue drama, starring Blanche Sweet.
Her Crowning Glory (1911), household comedy, with comic team John Bunny and Flora Finch, about an eight-year old who gets her way.
The Confederate Ironclad (1912), Civil War adventure, here accompanied by the original music score, in which the tough heroine saves the day.
The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912), social problem drama about a tattered newspaper boy who yearns for a better life.
And that’s not to mention rare William S. Hart, Anna May Wong, Chuck Jones, and John Hustion selections (and even Groucho Marx’s home movies)
For more info: http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvd_treasures.html