Tag: 1911

Categories
This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Pirates Of 1920 (1911)

Pirates Of 1920 is a (partially incomplete) science fiction film from 1911 directed by Dave Aylott and A.E. Coleby, set in the terrifying far future of 1920, where a group sky pirates roam the world causing fairly slow havoc in their zeppelin, robbing cruise liners and stealing beautiful women from their husbands-to-be.

This future is 100 years old!

Anyway, I like the use of tints in different scenes, which is used to good effect, with blue for the night time scenes and an ominous red for an explosion (the model effects are great, too).

I also really liked this strangely specific not the sky pirates prisoner dropped out of the airship in an attempt to get help in her escape.

Unfortunately the film itself is a bit generic, and as the last five minutes of it have been lost, none of us will ever know if Jack Manley, our excellently named hero, successfully saves our plucky heroine from those dastardly pirates in the end or not.

But we can hope and we can dream.

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Notes

1. I watched this on the BFI Player here

2. There’s loads of things called Pirates of 1920 on youtube, but none of them actually seem to be this, for some reason.

3. The use of tinting in this reminded me of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916 version), which I saw a few years ago, and which had different tints depending on whether scenes were set underwater, on Captain Nemo’s submarine, or outside, an so on.

4. I saw that version with a live soundtrack by the band Fishclaw, and it was really great.

5. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any snippets of their soundtrack anywhere

6. And also I can’t find whatever tinted version of the film they showed anywhere either, with every version on youtube or wherever in boring old permanent black and white.

7. Anyway, I enjoyed 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea very much and might watch it again soon.

8. Especially as I’m pretty sure it was while watching that that I decided to make this website.

9. And then took 4 years to actually get round to doing it.

10. But now I have, so everything is okay.
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Film Information

Title: Pirates Of 1920
Director: Dave Aylott and A.E. Coleby
Year: 1911
Duration: 17 minutes
Watch: BFI Player

Categories
This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

Animated Putty (1911)

Animated Putty is a short demonstration of stop motion/claymation effects from 1911, directed by “trick” film specialist WR Booth. It consists entirely of a number of sequences where some lumps of putty roll around slowly forming themselves into intricate shapes and models, and it’s brilliant.

There’s two incredible scenes here. The first is one where a windmill builds itself from scratch, and then slowly creates its own sails as it spins. The second is where the pretty figure of a woman transforms into and utterly horrifying demonic gargoyle, which then proceeds to vomit up further gargoyles until we all scream.

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Notes

1. I watched this on the BFI site here.

2. WR Booth also directed ‘The “?” Motorist’ (1906) and ‘The Automatic Motorist’ (1911), both of which I reviewed here.

3. One of the first cartoons I made when I first got a 3DS was a little plasticine worm.

4. Which would have been obsolete a full century before.

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Film Information

Title: Animated Putty
Director: WR Booth
Year: 1911
Duration: 4 minutes

Categories
This Film Is More Than 100 Years Old

The “?” Motorist (1906) / The Automatic Motorist (1911)

The “?” Motorist is a pretty wonderful 3-minute long comedy sketch made in 1906 by WR Booth, an early pioneer in so-called “trick” films, where camera tricks and special effects were used to create breathtaking, impossible, visuals.

The “?” Motorist is a delight. It’s quick, funny, perfectly paced, with a strangely beautiful space interlude and a great final joke. The only downside is that it has a frightening moon with a terrifying face, as was the style at the time.

Then, five years later, he decided to make it again, but this time with a robot driving the car.

The Automatic Motorist, despite the robot, is unfortunately worse in almost every way. In typical reboot style, there’s more stuff, and almost all of it worse, so this is longer, slower, with worse jokes, and any number of shots that go on too long.

There is a, though, really lovely scene where they drive along the bottom of a lake and look at all the delightful newts swimming around, which I found really beautiful.

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Notes

1. I watched both of these on the BFI player – The “?” Motorist; The Automatic Motorist
2. Neither of those versions have music, but you can probably find versions with a score on youtube.
3. And many thanks to Vom Vorton for telling me to watch The “?” Motorist, as it was excellent.

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Film Information

Title: The “?” Motorist
Director: WR Booth
Year: 1906
Runtime: 3 minutes

Title: The Automatic Motorist
Director: WR Booth
Year: 1911
Runtime: 6 minutes