1904 Poll

[sally]

speaking of lengths, the mistletoe bough was only available for ages as a 3 min version, but the 8:30 version on the bfi website (and possibly other places) is much more effective

[sally]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqgtOn8upPQ

am making a start on 1904 now, and good old (literal, poetic) hepworth. the turning of the wheels of the field machine churning out hay, the cranking of the camera churning out film; the joyous dream of life (children) arising from the collected material, by a reflecting eternal river; and at the end the storage/archive collection for commercial use. cute

[greennui]

That reminded me of how much I loved playing in hay as a kid. The smell, the way it would stick in your clothes...actually I'd still be down for it tbh.

[sally]

me too! the smells! i grew up on a farm and after reading the english countryside classic cider with rosie as a youth, spent half my neurotic teens wondering why i wasn't as cheerful and buxom and slutty as she was, and the other half wondering whether she was retarded. but i never had a problem with the hay-barn idylls (although one child did get crushed by a rogue one rolling)

anyway, in wales:
the bathers' revenge (william haggar)

this is all blah blah oh nice, boys in their pants, oh a joke, but then at then end, out of nowhere!.....

[sally]

also, last one for today promise, am logging this here because it will definitely make my final list as it's a gorgeous paul rotha-ish prelude to a day in the life of a coal miner (1910) and all the coal films that span out of that, but it's not on letterboxd

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000481/ (aka miner's daily life on the bfi website)

[sally]

HELP! can someone explain which what who? are they both the same film even though they're totally different? um. what is going on (is the longer one just misattributed? a remake from a bit later? tho cannot see mention of this anywhere anywhere) anyone else suggest some explanation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ7vlB8EE_M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2mwSa8Qq3Y

[flip]

interesting find! i found a review on imdb that seems to have been written by an early film scholar that might solve the mystery:

"There are actually two versions of this films in existence and both are available on youtube (one tinted and one black and white). One must clearly be a longer make of the other (and may therefore date from a couple of year later). Although the scenario remains basically the same, the actors are different, there are small variations here and there in the scenes and the black and white film is nearly twice the length. The tinted version is unquestionably the original 1904 film because it matches the details given in the Pathé catalogue both in terms of length (75m) and in terms of the ending."

[sally]

hmmmm, i wonder what the story is with the longer version then? it's got the CNC logo on so you assume they might be able to catalogue their own national films a bit better but then again after seeing how easily titles get confused: https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/a-new-title-f ... andem-1909 maybe someone watched the film and just matched the plot to a description of velle's from 1904, when actually it's a remake from a few years later (my inexperienced eye agrees with early film scholar) and no one has located it in a dusty catalogue yet...

i guess we'll never know but thank you for posting that info!....

[kanafani]

I watched a few last weekend.

A Day in the Hayfields (Cecil M. Hepworth, 1904)

Panorama du port d'Alger ( 1904)
Court Ladies Bathing ( 1904)
Barcelona Park at Twilight (Segundo de Chomón, 1904)
Metamorphosis of a Butterfly (Gaston Velle, 1904)
Panorama View, Street Car Motor Room ( 1904)
Blackpool Victoria Pier ( 1904)
Grand Display of Brock's Fireworks at the Crystal Palace (George Albert Smith, 1904)
Le Bey de Tunis et les personnages de sa suite descendant l'escalier du Bardo (Alexandre Promio, 1904)

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Final list - will edit if I get a chance for more before tomorrow evening

Panorama View, Street Car Motor Room (G.W. Bitzer)
Le Voyage à travers l'impossible (Georges Méliès)
The Great Toronto Fire, Toronto, Canada, April 19, 1904 (George Scott)
An Interesting Story (James Williamson)
How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the ‘New York Herald’ Personal Columns (Edwin S. Porter)
A Day in the Hayfields (Cecil M. Hepworth)
Dévaliseurs nocturnes (Gaston Velle)
Automobile Race for the Vanderbilt Cup (American Mutoscope & Biograph)
Girls Taking Time Checks (G.W. Bitzer)
Photographing a Female Crook (Edwin S. Porter)
Basket Ball, Missouri Valley College (American Mutoscope & Biograph)
Coil Winding Section E (American Mutoscope & Biograph)
Audley Range School, Blackburn (Mitchell & Kenyon)
L’assassinat du ministre Plehve (Lucien Nonguet)
Un peu de feu s.v.p. (Georges Méliès)
The Latest News (Warwick Trading Company)
Barcelone - Parc au crépuscule (Segundo de Chomón)
Un miracle sous l’Inquisition (Georges Méliès)
Indiens et cow-boys (Pathé Frères)
Drat That Boy (Robert W. Paul)

[greennui]

1. A Day in the Hayfields (Cecil M. Hepworth)

Grand Display of Brock’s Fireworks at the Crystal Palace (George Albert Smith)
Princess Rajah Dance
Court Ladies Bathing
Panorama View, Street Car Motor Room
Panorama du port d’Alger
Blackpool Victoria Pier
La Danse du diable (Gaston Velle)
The Impossible Voyage (Georges Méliès)
Barcelona Park at Twilight (Segundo de Chomón)

[greennui]

That's one way to dance with a chair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcOvl0h5Za8

[lineuphere]

1. Barnum's Trunk (Gaston Velle)
The Wonderful Living Fan (Georges Méliès)
The Terrible Turkish Executioner (Georges Melies)
A Day in the Hayfields (Cecil M. Hepworth)
An Interesting Story (James Williamson)
Panorama View, Street Car Motor Room (G.W. Bitzer)
Le Voyage à travers l'impossible (Georges Méliès)
Capture of the 'Yegg' Bank Burglars (Edwin S. Porter)
Dog Factory (Edwin S. Porter)
Grand Display of Brock’s Fireworks at the Crystal Palace (George Albert Smith)
Raid on a Coiner’s Den (Alf Collins)
The Untamable Whiskers (Georges Méliès)
The Cook in Trouble (Georges Méliès)

[sally]

astonishing how many reasons 1904 comes up with for loads of people to give chase to one person, and even more astonishing that i have never seen one such chase in my lifetime, given how easily it apparently happens.

it's an art in itself isn't really, varying the dynamics.....constellations of participants (little boy on crutches! tee hee hee! hilarity!) obstacles, cutting, framing and locations....but big LOL to porter who obviously got bored making them and just cynically flipped the whole thing with style in rector's to claremont....

coming straight out of 1913, some of these 1904's aren't that different really to some of the comedy shorts made 9 years later, and the longer ones, if they're filmed outdoors, are pretty much all there already (moonshiners, ex-convict etc) but bless him, méliès feels ancient even in 1904. (but he's so cute it hardly matters...)

gonna post my list tomorrow as i'm too sleepy to whittle it down right now...

[sally]

1. maniac chase
2. a day in the hayfields
3. a collier's life/miner's daily life
4. tapping a furnace
5. casting a guide box
6. barcelona park at twilight
7. burglary at night
8. scenes in an infant orphan asylum
9. the moonshiner
10. edwardian folkestone
11. rounding up of the "yeggmen"
12. the fairy of spring
13. revenge!
14. the ex-convict
15. the strike
16. grand display of brock's fireworks at the crystal palace
17. the mistletoe bough
18. an interesting story
19. a moonlight serenade
20. the suburbanite


was going to go with hepworth until i saw maniac chase. i know it's a remake, but it's an improvement on the original and it is sublime, the madman's fake-looking jail is the precise size of the frame, and his attempt to escape it/our gaze into the world: it's avery's cellbound, naruse's sadism, but sad/funny/horrific too.

also shout out to the two most baffled ducks ever, in court ladies bathing. boobies!

[Lencho of the Apes]

Things end, just like movies do.

And this thing will end in about two hours. Late submissions will still be processed, up to a certain point...

[Lencho of the Apes]

I didn't make time to watch any 1904s this month, my bad. Maybe I can kick back for 20-30 minutes and watch five or ten, or maybe I'll just use my preliminary ballot.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Oops

1
A Day In The Hayfields

2
An Interesting Story
Panorama View: Streetcar Motor Room
Le Voyage travers l'impossible (Georges Méliès)

5
Grand Display of Brock’s Fireworks at the Crystal Palace (George Albert Smith)

6
Barcelona Park at Twilight (Segundo de Chomón)

7
Maniac Chase

8
La Danse du Diable (Gaston Velle)
The Ex-Convict
The Suburbanite
La Valise de barnum

12
L’Assassinat du Ministre Plehve (Lucien Nonguet)
Le Bey de Tunis et les personnages de sa suite descendant l’escalier du Bardo (Alexandre Promio)
Blackpool Victoria Pier
Burglary At Night
The Cook in Trouble (Georges Melies)
Court Ladies Bathing ( 1904)
How the French Nobleman Got A Wife
Metamorphosis Of A Butterfly
Panorama du port d'Alger ( 1904)

21 - 30
Bullet Piercing a Soap Bubble (Lucien Bull)
Capture of the 'Yegg' Bank Burglars (Edwin S. Porter)
The Christmas Angel
European Rest Cure
Meet Me At The Fountain
The Moonshiner
Raid on a Coiner’s Den (Alf Collins)
The Terrible Turkish Executioner (Georges Melies)
The Wonderful Living Fan (Georges Méliès)
The Untamable Whiskers (Georges Méliès)