# Wanna See Some REALLY Old Movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 6, 2000, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970 "2000-10-06T15:34:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/1 "2000-10-06T15:34:50Z")
> **[About this Collection  | Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion...](https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/about-this-collection/)** > > This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles. Cylinder sound recordings will be added to this site in the near future. In addition, histories are... 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! ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/2 "2000-10-06T15:58:48Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/3 "2000-10-06T16:15:36Z")
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! ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/4 "2000-10-06T16:24:28Z")
Thanks, guys, glad you like it! You can have “Schindler’s List,” give me “Aunt Sally’s Wonderful Bustle” anytime. —“The Vitagraph Girl” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/5 "2000-10-06T16:28:43Z")
I now have a continuous tape loop of the epic _Loading Ammunition on Mules, Cuba_ as my screensaver. Thanks, **Eve!** ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/6 "2000-10-06T16:39:19Z")
Glad you enjoy the mules, Ike. Give me the red-hot uncensored sex of “Seminary Girls” or “Sandow.” Yow! ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/7 "2000-10-06T16:52:16Z")
Ike - How did you make your screen saver? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/8 "2000-10-06T16:57:36Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/9 "2000-10-06T17:05:16Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/10 "2000-10-06T17:21:15Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/11 "2000-10-06T17:24:23Z")
…But you can see it [here](http://www.theelectricchair.com/videos.htm). Geez. I forgot how heartbreaking it is. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/12 "2000-10-06T17:56:40Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/13 "2000-10-06T18:05:02Z")
“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. ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/14 "2000-10-06T19:07:08Z")
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. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/15 "2000-10-06T19:12:43Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/16 "2000-10-06T21:44:05Z")
For the audio equivalent, try the archives at [Tinfoil.com](http://www.tinfoil.com/archive.htm), 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. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2000, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/17 "2000-10-07T03:44:44Z")
> [@](#): > > sadly they don’t have “The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog.” Eve, you do know it’s available on DVD, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2000, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanna-see-some-really-old-movies/35970/18 "2000-10-08T16:33:03Z")
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](http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvd_treasures.html)