BLACHEFAN

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/princess nicotine.pdf

Princess Nicotine; or The Smoke Fairy (1909) This tale of a tormented smoker, in which fairies bedevil a man's attempt to light his pipe, was the most celebrated special effects film of its day. Trick films were a specialty of the New York-based Vitagraph Company, then America's leading film producer, and many were inspired by Georges Méliès's pioneering French fantasies. Director J. Stuart Blackton used double exposure, stop-motion animation and parlor tricks that literally relied on smoke and mirrors to create his fantasy tour de force.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/lady_helen.pdf

Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) This sprightly short comedy stars actress Florence Lawrence ("The Biograph Girl") who became the first true star in American cinema through a combination of natural charm and canny publicity. She was the first actor or actress to receive billing in film credits, a break from the anonymity that actors and actresses had worked in until that point.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/corner_in_wheat.pdf

A Corner in Wheat (1909) The father of the American narrative film, D.W. Griffith pioneered film techniques that continue to influence filmmakers. Ably assisted by his long-time cameraman G.W. "Billy" Bitzer, Griffith produced this 14-minute film decrying greed and its consequences. Griffith was inspired by the work of Frank Norris, a novelist best known for "McTeague" (1899) — later adapted as "Greed" (1925), another Registry film. Griffith discovered a trilogy Norris was writing at the time of his death in 1902. Its theme was wheat: how it's grown, distributed and consumed. Griffith achieves a surprising sense of movement from a single stationary camera, and by building drama with the the use of intercut images to illustrates comparisons and contrasts.

Dixon-Wanamaker Expedition to Crow Agency (1908) The original nitrate footage that comprises the 1908 "Dixon-Wanamaker Expedition to Crow Agency" was discovered in a Montana antique store in 1982 and subsequently donated to the Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution. It is the only known surviving film footage from the 1908 Rodman Wanamaker-sponsored expedition to record American Indian life in the west, filmed and produced both for an educational screening at Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia and to document what Wanamaker and photographer Joseph K. Dixon considered a "vanishing race." Dixon and his son Roland shot motion picture film as well as thousands of photographs (most of the photographs are archived at Indiana University). This film captures life on Crow Agency, Crow Fair and a recreation of the Battle of Little Big Horn featuring four of Custer's Crow scouts. Films from later Wanamaker expeditions are archived at the National Archives and the American Museum of Natural History. The original film was photochemically preserved at Cinema Arts in 1983.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/Trip Down Market Street.kiehn.pdf

A Trip Down Market Street (1906) This 13-minute film was recorded by placing a movie camera on the front of a cable car as it proceeded down San Francisco's Market Street. As a time capsule, the film showcases the details of daily life in a major American city, including the fashions, transportations and architecture of the era. The film was originally thought to have been made in 1905, but historian David Kiehn, who examined contemporary newspapers, weather reports and car license plates recorded in the film later suggested that "A Trip Down Market Street" was likely filmed just a few days before the devastating earthquake on April 18, 1906. The expanded essay is in the next box.

San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, April 18, 1906 (1906) This film shows the aftermath of the 8.3 magnitude 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the devastation resulting from the subsequent three-day fire that erupted amidst collapsed buildings and broken water mains. Each scene in the film is preceded by a title, and many of the titles overdramatized and sentimentalized on-screen events such as "At mealtimes, when there was food to be had, troubles were banished." Some scenes were almost certainly staged for the camera as the final montage of actual footage, fabricated scenes and titles was released at least a month after the event.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/dream_rarebit.pdf

Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) Based on noted illustrator Winsor McCay's popular comic strip that ran in the New York Evening Telegram from 1904 to 1914, this short fantasy comedy by film pioneer Edwin S. Porter employed groundbreaking trick photography, including some of the earliest uses of double exposure in American cinema. Porter used camera sleight-of-hand to create the hallucinatory dreams of a top-hatted swell (Jack Brawn) who, after gorging himself on Welsh rarebit, is beset by dancing, spinning furniture and mischievous imps. To create the dream effects, he used a spinning camera and moveable set pieces, along with multiple exposures. Stop-motion and matte paintings added to the film's whimsical appeal. Porter, who joined Thomas Edison's company in 1899 and advanced the special effects pioneered by Georges Méliès, completed the seven-minute film in nine days at a cost of $350, which is about $10,000 today. The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film has preserved the film.

Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905) This early actuality film documents New York City's newest marvel, the subway, less than seven months after its opening. However, the film is not as simple as it first appears. It required coordinating three trains: the one we watch, the one carrying the camera and a third (glimpsed on the parallel track) to carry a bank of lights. The artistic flair is the vision of legendary cameraman G.W. "Billy" Bitzer.

Westinghouse Works 1904 (1904) This collection of 21 short films, shot in and around various Westinghouse companies near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, illustrates some of the earliest examples of what became known as industrial films. These highly illustrative shorts were produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (AM&B) and shot by acclaimed cinematographer Billy Bitzer, sometimes from overhead cranes. The films demonstrate tasks as mundane as punching a time clock and as complex as assembling and testing huge turbines. When screened for Westinghouse employees and later at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (the St. Louis World's Fair), live narration describing each scene accompanied the films.

The Great Train Robbery (1903) Considered the first narrative film, "The Great Train Robbery" was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter, a former cameraman for the Thomas Edison company. Primitive by modern standards, the 10-minute action picture depicts 14 distinct scenes filmed at various locales in New Jersey intended to represent the American West. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, the screen's first Western star, played several roles in the film, including a bandit and a train passenger. Audiences were thrilled and terrified to watch a gunman in medium close-up fire directly at the screen in the film's final scene ... although Porter suggested to exhibitors it could just as easily be shown at the beginning of the film instead.

The Life of an American Fireman (1903) Film historian Charles Musser hails this as a seminal work in American cinema, among the most innovative in terms of editing, storytelling and the relationship between shots. Edwin S. Porter was an influential pioneer in the development of early American cinema and "Life of an American Fireman" provides a superb snapshot of how advanced U.S. filmmaking had become. Porter followed up several months later with "The Great Train Robbery." Ironically, "Life of an American Fireman" later became a controversial topic in American film historiography when a reedited, more modern version of the film using cross-cutting techniques was thought to be the original. Many years later, scholars helped disprove this misconception by reviewing the original paper print copyright deposit in the Library of Congress.

Emigrants Landing at Ellis Island (1903) On July 9, 1903, cinematographer Alfred C. Abadie recorded this short actuality for the Thomas A. Edison company, which first sold the film of immigrants arriving in New York under the title "Emigrants Landing at Ellis Island." The Edison sales catalog called it "a most interesting and typical scene" of the location already well-known as the place where the U.S. government officially processed immigrants. Between 1892 and 1924, millions came to Ellis Island from across Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. Running little more than two minutes, the Edison film, in three shots, records a ferryboat docking and dozens of passengers stepping onto Ellis Island and parading past the camera in orderly fashion. Ranging in age from elders to infants, most carry a variety of bags, bundles and baskets. Many similar images from the era have become familiar in documentary depictions of American immigration, but Edison's film, made in the first decade of motion pictures, was the first to record the now-mythologized moment.

https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/mckinley.pdf

President McKinley Inauguration Footage (1901) Two separate short bits of film comprise "President McKinley Inauguration Footage, and the material presents a unique look at one of the seminal events of turn-of-the-20th-Century political history. In the next box is the expanded essay for the President McKinley Inauguration Footage.

Demolishing and Building Up the Star Theatre (1901) This early short film by the Biograph Company shows the demolition of the Star Theatre at the corner of Broadway and 13th Street in New York. Filming at normal speed, photographers shot 15 seconds of footage showing the intact building and then the site once it was cleared. As demolition began, the company set up a camera to capture time exposures every four minutes, eight hours a day. Frederick S. Armitage, who is credited with directing the film, edited the footage into a two-minute film that first shows the intact building crumble "as if struck by a tornado of supernatural strength," courtesy of the time-lapse photography. The film then continues with the normal-speed footage of the bare site, making it appear that passersby are oblivious to the destruction. Biograph suggested to exhibitors of the film, "When this view is shown in the reverse, the effect is very extraordinary."

Something Good – Negro Kiss (1898) According to scholars and archivists, this recently discovered 29-second film may represent the earliest example of African-American intimacy on-screen. American cinema was a few years old by 1898 and distributors struggled to entice audiences to this new medium. Among their gambits to find acceptable "risqué" fare, the era had a brief run of "kissing" films. Most famous is the 1896 Edison film "The Kiss," which spawned a rash of mostly inferior imitators. However, in "Something Good," the chemistry between vaudeville actors Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown was palpable. Also noteworthy is this film's status as the earliest known surviving Selig Polyscope Company film. The Selig Company had a good run as a major American film producer from its founding in 1896 until its ending around 1918. "Something Good" exists in a 19th-century nitrate print from the University of Southern California Hugh Hefner Moving Image Archive. USC Archivist Dino Everett and Dr. Allyson Nadia Field of the University of Chicago discovered and brought this important film to the attention of scholars and the public. Field notes, "What makes this film so remarkable is the non-caricatured representation and naturalistic performance of the couple. As they playfully and repeatedly kiss, in a seemingly improvised performance, Suttle and Brown constitute a significant counter to the racist portrayal of African Americans otherwise seen in the cinema of its time. This film stands as a moving and powerful image of genuine affection, and is a landmark of early film history."

Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897) Independently produced motion picture recordings of famous boxing contests were a leading factor in establishing the commercial success of movies in the late 19th century. Championship boxing matches were the most widely popular sporting contests in America in that era, even though the sport was banned in many states in the 1890s. Soon after Nevada legalized boxing in 1897, the Corbett-Fitzsimmons title fight was held in that state in Carson City on St. Patrick's Day of that year. The film recorded the introductions of famous personalities in attendance and all 14 of the fight's three-minute rounds, plus the one-minute breaks between rounds. With a running time of approximately 100 minutes, "The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight" was the longest movie produced at that time. Films of championship matches before 1897 had been unsuccessful because they ended too quickly with knockouts, leaving movie audiences unwilling to pay high-ticket prices to see such short films. "Corbett-Fitzsimmons" was a tremendous commercial success for the producers and contestants James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons (the victor), generating an estimated $750,000 in income during the several years that it remained in distribution. This film also is deserving of a footnote in the technical history of motion pictures. Producers of early boxing films protected their films from piracy by engineering film printers and projectors that could only accept film stock of a proprietary size. The film prints of the fight were manufactured in a unique 63mm format that could only be run on a special projector advertised as "The Veriscope."

Rip Van Winkle (1896) Renowned stage actor Joseph Jefferson made a career of portraying Washington Irving's mercurial title character beginning in the mid 1800s and by the 1890s was the most famous actor in America. Capitalizing on Jefferson's success, Edison protege William K.L. Dickson filmed the actor in eight scenes from the fantasy tale set in New York's Catskill Mountains. The scenes were available to exhibitors as individual films that could be shown together or separately in any order they chose. They proved so popular that the scenes were edited together as a single film released in 1903. The film's success helped Dickson's Biograph company, successor to his original American Mutoscope Company, the most popular studio in the country.

The Kiss (1896) At the time it was produced in 1896, the 20-second film "The Kiss" was denounced in some parts of the country as illicit pornography. Produced under the auspices of Thomas Edison's company, and directed and photographed by William Heise, "The Kiss" between the actors May Irwin and John C. Rice was a reenactment of the final scene of a stage success of theirs titled "The Widow Jones." And, at the time, despite the controversy, Audiences of the emerging art form were drawn to the film's provocative subject matter, and reportedly demanded that the stars be reteamed. "The Kiss" represents not only film's first romance but also the first time films were regularly projected on screens rather than shown to individual viewers on machines that became known as nickelodeons.

Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) One of the earliest film recordings and the oldest surviving copyrighted motion picture, Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (Jan. 7, 1894) is commonly known as "Fred Ott's Sneeze" or simply "The Sneeze." W. K. L. Dickson, who led Thomas Edison's team of inventors, took the images of fellow engineer Ott enacting a snuff-induced sneeze. In March 1894, Harper's Weekly magazine, which requested the pictures, published a sequence of still images taken from the film. "The Sneeze" became synonymous with the invention of movies although it was not seen as a moving picture until 1953 when 45 frames were re-animated on 16 mm film. The full 81 frames published in Harper's Weekly were never seen as a movie until 2013 when the Library of Congress made a 35 mm film version. In this new complete version, Fred Ott sneezes twice.