Category: This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Seven Chances (1925)

Seven Chances is a silent comedy from 1925, directed by and starring Buster Keaton, and based on a 1916 play by Roi Cooper Megrue.

Buster Keaton is a stockbroker who must marry a woman (any woman) before 7 o’clock this evening if he wants to inherit $7 million, which also seems to be the only way he can avoid financial ruin and possibly jail after “accidentally” committing some sort of massively fraudulent crime.

After annoying his sweetheart by revealing the machinations of the film’s plot to her, Buster has only 7 hours to find a new bride, and retreats to the local country club to chat up and proposition 7 local women, with a complete and unsurprising lack of success.

Luckily everything eventually spirals out of control and Keaton’s character finds himself caught up in an ever-escalating nearly 20-minute long chase scene that begins with him trying to outrun an army of potential brides in the middle of the city and ends with him being chased down by a mountain by hundreds of ten foot boulders. I assume this sequence wasn’t in the original play (although I’d quite like to see it if it was).

It’s an incredible ending, though, especially after the fairly sedate and ever so slightly boring first 40 minutes have lulled you into a false sense of security.

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Notes

1. I watched this on Mubi, although how long it’ll be on there I don’t know.

2. But you can’t take screenshots of films on mubi for some stupid reason, so I had to capture them from this version on youtube instead.

3. The first two-thirds or so of this is unfortunately marred by constant racist interruptions.

4. Which kind of under cut the charm of the whole thing to be honest.

5. The final 20 minute action sequence really is astonishingly spectacular though.

6. And almost entirely racism free.

7. Which is a bit of a relief

8. The first few scenes in this are filmed in early technicolor colour, too, which is nice (although then it reverts to Buster’s usual beautifully shot black and white)

9. There’s a real dreaminess to mid 20s technicolor films that I love.

10. As seen in The Black Pirate

11. An actual 100 year old film which I’ll review next week sometime hopefully

12. Doing this website’s only job on time for once

13. (1926 seems to be a good year for films, because I’ll get to watch The General and The Adventures Of Prince Achmed too)

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Film Information

Title: Seven Chances
Director: Buster Keaton
Year: 1925
Duration: 1 hour
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

The Tale Of The Amp Lion (1925)

The Tale Of The Amp Lion is an advert for Amplion, an old brand of speaker for record players and radios. It was directed by the illustrator William Heath Robinson in what was his only foray into animation.

In this short cartoon, two cartoon Amplion speakers transform themselves into various things (including, yes, a lion), before eventually reforming into a photograph of an actual Amplion speaker right at the end (so you know exactly what it is you want to buy). The animation is pretty simple, but also delightful, and some of the transformations/transitions are pretty funny too (not least the swan laying a big tower of eggs, which made me laugh more than it should have done, probably).

Considering I never knew until I found this that William Heath Robinson had ever made a cartoon, now I’m suddenly quite sad that he never made anymore.

(I also like the way the final advertising slogan has an entirely different meaning, product wise, 100 years later than it did at the time, although that has nothing to do with the cartoon itself, obviously.)

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Notes

1. I watched this on the BFI Player

2. Which has stopped working for me on safari for some reason, but still seems to work on chrome.

3. Just in case you’re also having trouble with it.

4. William Heath Robinson is probably best known to most for his Heath Robinson machines.

5. (Not to be confused with the Heath Robinson machine, obviously)

5. And if not that then for his fairy tale illustrations (which are equally wonderful).

6. Especially this spectacularly unimpressed cat from The Ugly Duckling (I think)

7. Heath Robinson’s brother Charles Robinson’s fairy tale illustrations are also just as good.

8. There was also a third Robinson brother who was an illustrator but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a single one of his pictures so who knows if he’s real or not.

9. And I’m not about to check.

10. Sorry

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Film Information

Title: The Tale Of The Amp Lion
Year: 1925
Director: W. Heath Robinson
Duration: 2 minutes
Watch: BFI Player
Further Reading: The Heath Robinson Museum; A selection of William Heath Robinson illustrations

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Alice In Wonderland (1903)

Alice In Wonderland is a 1904 adaptation of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and starring Cecil Hepwroth, Cecil Hepworth’s wife, and Cecil Hepworth’s cat (plus May Clark as Alice). The very first film version of Alice In Wonderland, at the time this was the longest film produced in Britain, but a third of the original film has been lost, unfortunately, so only about 8 minutes survive.

The very first film version of Alice In Wonderland, at the time this was the longest film produced in Britain, but a third of the original film has been lost, unfortunately, so only about 8 minutes survive (and unfortunately, there’s still quite a lot of damage and degradation to the remaining film). But they’re a pretty wonderful 8 minutes, luckily for us.

Even taking in to account the lost footage, this must have always been a fairly quick paced run through the book’s most iconic scenes. As with a lot of early film adaptations, the assumption was that the audience would already know the story it was based on, which is apparent here where a lot of it is intentionally framed to evoke John Tenniel’s original illustrations from the book (especially obvious in the shot above).

So this is like a greatest hits package of the book rather than a narrative adaptation, and we get a brisk run through the eat me/drink me sequence, the Mad Hatter’s tea party, the Red Queen, and so on. The highlight of the film, though, is the wonderful Cheshire Cat refusing to even entertain the idea of a smile.

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Notes

1. I watched this on the BFI Player

2. It’s also on youtube

3. It’s nice to see that they’ve been getting the name wrong ever since the very first adaptation.

4. For another 100 year old Alice adaptation (in spirit rather than in fact), you should watch Elsie And The Brown Bunny

5. Also, not that this’ll be interesting really to anyone but me, my sister has a cat that looks very much like that magnificently grumpy Cheshire Cat

6. Which is nice

7. It’s kind of interesting how quickly the look of Alice became entrenched.

8. A testament to how great those original illustrations were.

9. The biggest deviation in over a 100 years probably being Jan Svankmajer giving her a pink dress instead of a blue or white one.

10. And that took until 1988.

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Film Information

Title: Alice In Wonderland
Director: Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow
Year: 1903
Duration: 10 minutes
Further Reading: John Tenniel’s original Alice illustrations

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

The Mistletoe Bough (1904)

The Mistletoe Bough was filmed in 1904 and directed by Percy Stow.

An atmospheric tale where a game of hide and seek goes wrong, The Mistletoe Bough is a nice combination of Christmas story, ghost tale, romance, and horror. The ending is a bit abrupt, making me wonder if there’s a missing scene or two at the very end, but it’s still a lovely little film (or as lovely as a film about a dead bride can be).

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Notes

1. I watched this on the BFI Player again.

2. Although it’s also on youtube too if that’s more convenient for you.

3. It’s based on an old folk tale/urban legend crossover, the history of which is pretty interesting.

4. It’s a pity people don’t sing that song at Christmas any more really.

5. Or if they do I’ve never noticed before.

6. After watching this I read The Mistletoe Bride by Kate Mosse, which is based on the same tale.

7. And which was quite good too.

8. Which was nice

9. This film version was directed by Percy Stow, who directed the first ever film version of Alice In Wonderland, and also made the excellent spoof film The Unclean World.

10. Which I watched here a few years back.

11. There was also apparently a 1926 version of the same tale, but I can’t seem to find any evidence it survives.

12. Obviously if I had found it, I still wouldn’t have been able to watch it until 2026.

13. (two whole days away now)

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Film Information

Title: The Mistletoe Bough
Director: Percy Stow
Year: 1904
Duration: 10 minutes
Watch: BFI Player; youtube

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

A Scandal In Bohemia (1921) / The Golden Pince-Nez (1922) / The Final Problem (1923)

Between 1921 and 1923, Stoll Pictures produced three separate series of Holmes adaptations (The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, and The Last Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes), comprising 45 short episodes and 2 feature length films, all directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes and Hubert Willis as Doctor Watson.

The three episodes here include one from each series, A Scandal In Bohemia from The Adventures…, The Golden Pince-Nez from The Further Adventures… and The Final Problem from The Last Adventures…

A Scandal in Bohemia is probably the weakest of the three episodes here, although that’s largely down to the soruce material, a story that reduces Sherlock Holmes to a petty thief of absolutely buffoonish incompetence. Apparently robbing an innocent woman (and drugging her and also throwing fireworks through hr front room window) is perfectly okay if a German prince asks you to do it.

Luckily Irene Adler (renamed Irene Adair here for some reason, one of the few changes in what are generally very close adaptations of the source material) has the amazing super power of not being an idiot, and sees through Holmes’s elaborately useless plans immediately, earning Holmes’s undying admiration (and also probably his scorn).

The Golden Pince-Nez is better, actually allowing Holmes to do some crime solving. The mystery here is a locked room style problem, where a man has been murdered in his study and the murderer has subsequently vanished into thin air. The police are stumped, Watson is confused, but Sherlock solves it all pretty much instantly, with a twinklish smile and lots of cigarettes.

In the very last episode of the regular series, The Final Problem finally sees Holmes tangling with Moriarty, played with swaggering Orson Welles-esque menace by Percy Standing. Pretty much everything about this episode is great, even the choice to replace the Reichenbach Falls with the Cheddar Gorge, which looks genuinely spectacular on screen, its impossibly imposing cliffs rendered in (perfectly restored) stark black and white.

The slightly shocking end to the episode (although not that shocking if you know the story, obviously) is undercut somewhat by the “Sherlock Holmes Will Return!” title card that immediately follows its conclusion (and indeed Sherlock Holmes did return in The Sign Of Four, the second of the feature length episodes, although whether that actually resolves the end of this episode or simply ignores it I do not know).

After finishing The Last Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Stoll Pictures moved on to making The Mystery Of Fu-Manchu, which is unsurprisingly quite similar in setting, structure, look and tone (why break a winning formula, really), essentially being an answer to the question “What if Holmes and Watson had to fight Moriarty every single week instead of only once?”.

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Notes

1. I watched these at Firstsite in Colchester, where they were showing as part of the BFI’s current Silent Sherlock presentation.

2. They also showed this ten minute explanation/overview of the BFI’s restoration project (which apparently is going to eventually include restorations of all 40-odd episodes and both films).

3. Anyway, this means that you’ll presumably have to go and see them at a nearby cinema or arts centre for now (if they’re showing them.

4. It also means the pictures above are BFI publicity stills rather than screen grabs I’ve made from youtube.

5. Which is why they look so nice, I suppose.

6. Although it would have been nice to show you how bloody lovely the shots of Cheddar Gorge look in The Final Problem.

7. At least a hundred times nicer than Switzerland ever could have, obviously.

8. Also I think this means I’ve seen two films this year which end with brutal deaths at Cheddar Gorge (along with 28 Years Later).

9. Which is probably two more than I’d ever seen before.

10. Unless you count all the episodes of Robin of Sherwood in the 80s.

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Film Information

Titles: A Scandal In Bohemia; The Golden Pince-Nez; The Final Problem
Director: Maurice Elvey
Duration: 25 minutes each
Further Reading: Inside The Archive: estoring Conan Doyle’s favourite screen Sherlock (10-minute video); Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases (2024 Sight and Sound review); Restoration Of Silent Sherlock (2024 BFI article); The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes (wikipedia article on the Stoll series)

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Momijigari (1899)

Momijigari is the oldest known Japanese film, filmed in 1899 by the filmmaker and documentarian Tsunekichi Shibata, depicting a scene from the kabuki play of the same name where a demon impersonates a noblewoman, and is later challenged to a duel. It features two of the most famous kabuki actors of the time, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and Onoe Kikugorō V.


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Notes

1. I watched this on youtube

2. Also apologies for the lack of anything interesting in this review (which isn’t even really a review, is it?).

3. It’s been over a year since I wrote anything on here and I’ve forgotten how to think or feel.

4. But anyway I liked it.

5. I hope that’s okay

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Film Information

Name: Momijigari
Director: Tsunekichi Shibata
Year: 1899
Duration: 5 minutes
Articles: A wikipedia article about Momijigari (which is much more informative than this post)

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

“Please to Remember the 5th of November” – But Bridgwater Celebrates (1922)

“Please to Remember the 5th of November” – But Bridgwater Celebrates is 45 seconds of wonderfully evocative documentary footage from a bonfire night carnival in Bridgwater in Somerset, in 1922.

I’ll never tire of the strange and endless beauty available by just pointing a camera at a fire and filming the smoke and the flames and the flickering light illuminating the surrounding scene. It’s lovely.

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Notes

1. I watched this on the BFI player

2. I was searching for halloween stuff but halloween evidently didn’t exist in Britain until the 1960s

3. At least as far as the BFI player is concerned anyhow.

4. Anyway, this all reminded me of the big huge Bridgwater willow man sculpture that I always see when I drive down to my brother’s in Cornwall.

5. Which in recent years always seems kind of forlorn, all headless and armless and bleakly sad.

6. The poor gigantic thing.

7. (It also reminded me that Bloodborne isn’t so much a fantasy game as straight up historical drama)

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Film Information

Title: “Please to Remember the 5th of November” – But Bridgwater Celebrates
Year: 1922
Duration: 1 minute
Watch: BFI Player

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Repas des Chats (1896) / Déjeuner Du Chat (1897) / Les Chats Boxeurs (1898) / Équilibre Et Moulinet (1899) / La Petite Fille Et Son Chat (1900)

These are various films by the Lumiere Brothers featuring cats. Lots and lots of lovely cats.

These are all about a minute long, and each (except possibly the boxing match one) prove beyond doubt that cats were basically exactly as delightful a hundred years ago or more as they are today.

Which is a very nice thing to prove, really.

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Notes

1. I watched these on youtube: Repas Des Chats; Dejeuner Du Chat; Les Chats Boxeurs; Équilibre Et Moulinet; La Petite Fille Et Son Chat.

2. And tried to work out the actual years they were from from this wonderful Lumiere Brothers website, as I’m not sure I trust the youtube titles entirely I’m afraid.

3. Also I couldn’t find all of these on that site, so don’t even know if all of these are actually Lumiere Brothers films at all.

4. But hopefully they are.

5. Also what I was actually looking for was Le Chat Qui Joue, another Lumiere Brothers cat film from 1897, which was mentioned in this Sight And Sound obscure cinematic gems article.

6. But which unfortunately I can’t find anywhere at all.

7. And the Blu-Ray it might be on costs £25.

8. Which is kind of a lot (for me).

9. Especially as it might not be on there anyway.

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

The Floorwalker (1916)

The Floorwalker is a 30 minute comedy directed by (and written by, starring, etc) Charlie Chaplin, who plays his usual hapless self as he gets caught up in a plan by two corrupt store managers to steal all the shop’s money from a safe for some reason.

This is the earliest Charlie Chaplin film I’ve seen, I think. It’s pretty good fun, although it ends so abruptly I thought maybe the final few scenes were missing (but apparently they aren’t, so who knows what was going on there).

It also includes what is apparently the first ever “running the wrong way on an escalator” gag, which they make pretty extensive – and fairly wonderful – usage of, and then goes on to pioneer the “not actually a mirror gag” in a sequence where Charlie Chaplin and one of the nefarious managers look so alike they both think they’re looking at their own reflections (the basis of jokes in what feels like 90% of Bugs Bunny cartoons, at least, plus probably hundreds of other things down the years).

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Notes

1. I watched this on blu-ray (this wonderful BFI set).

2. But there’s loads of versions of it on youtube if you want too.

3. Although I can’t vouch for the quality of either the image or the soundtrack on there.

4. This was Charlie Chaplin’s first film for Mutual.

5. Where he was paid $10,000 a week for a year to make 12 films.

6. Which he then did.

7. Although he took 18 months to finish them, the lazy bugger.

8. Before then moving on elsewhere to make even more films that aren’t on this blu-ray.

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Film Information

Title: The Floorwalker
Year: 1916
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Duration: 30 minutes
Watch: youtube

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This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

The Kuleshov Effect (1918)

The Kuleshov Effect is the process by which we derive meanings from shots not just from the shots themselves, but by their relationship to the previous and subsequent shots in the sequence, first demonstrated by the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s.

Editing together different sequences showing the actor Ivan Mosjoukine reacting to various scenes, Kuleshov noted how audiences ascribed different emtions to the actor’s expressions despiet the fact that in each case the exact same footage was used.

Which is both obvious to us now (100 years later) and also still endlessly interesting (or at least I think so).

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Notes

1. I watched two versions of this on youtube (1, 2)

2. And although both claim to be the original I’m pretty sure neither of them are.

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Film Information

Title: The Kuleshov Effect
Director: Lev Kuleshov
Year: 1918 (approximately)
Duration: 1 minute
Watch: youtube; youtube
Related Articles: wikipedia; Movements In Film; Nashville Film Institute