Le Diable Noir by Georges Melies (1905)

"El diablo negro"
Un precursor del cine y de las comedias. En éste caso, un simpático diablo que evidentemente no asusta a nadie. Sólo al sorprendido pasajero de un hotel que esperaba pasar una temporada de vacaciones bastante diferente a lo que resultó la realidad...

A traveler at an inn is harassed by a mischievous devil in his room.

(In 1913 Georges Méliès' film company was forced into bankruptcy by the large French and American studios and his company was bought out of receivership by Pathé Frères. After being driven out of business Méliès became a toy salesman at the Montparnasse station. In 1932 the Cinema Society gave Méliès a home in Chateau D'Orly. Melies did not grasp the value of his films, and having some 500 films recorded on cellulose the French Army seized most of this stock to be melted down into boot heels during World War I. Many of the other films were sold to be recycled into new film. As a result many of these films do not exist today.)

Director: Georges Méliès
Producer: Georges Melies
Production Company: Star Film Paris
Music, Black & White

Syd Chaplin - Gussle the Golfer (1914)

El medio hermano de Carlitos Chaplin, Sydney Chaplin, en uno de sus primeros cortometrajes.
Es interesante comparar la forma de trabajar de Sydney con la de Charlie.
Nótese, también, la aparición de Mack Swain, un actor que solía trabajar en las películas de Carlitos...

Charlie Chaplin's half-brother, Sydney Chaplin, in one of his early shorts.

Interesting to compare Syd's performance here with Charlie's -Idle Class-.

Note the appearance of Mack Swain, a regular in Charlie's movies.

Conduciendo por Nueva York (Comedia) / Driving Around New York City (1928)

Estados Unidos entra en los años '20s / America Comes of Age The 1920's

The 1920's - Affluence, Flappers, Prohibition, and All that Jazz

The 1920's, a decade of dissipation, of jazz bands, raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, flagpole sitters, bootleggers, marathon dancers, and bathing beauties. A decade when America truly came of age.
Photos
Library of Congress
Shorpy.com
Louise Brooks Society
The 1920's Experience
The Chicago Daily News
Digital History
Great Gatsby's
Timetable Images
Music
Irving Aaronson and the Commanders
Fred Astaire
George Olsen
Golden Gate Orchestra
Helen Kane
Sophie Tucker
Jack Hytion
conceived and produced by: Dale Caruso

Vivir en los años '20s / To Live In The 1920's

Maravilloso video en el que se puede apreciar un acercamiento a la forma de vida en los Estados Unidos de los años '20s. Transporte, moda, vida social y hasta algún loco invento, como un auto hecho especialmente para mujeres.

The Great Train Robbery / El Gran Robo al Tren (1903)

El Gran Robo al Tren se transformó en el primer western importante y uno de los que lo establecieron como género particular. La estructura narrativa "crimen - persecución - castigo" es el patrón de la mayoría de los films del Oeste que lo siguieron.

La película se estrenó en el Huber's Museum, un vaudeville de clase baja de la calle 14 de Nueva York.
Los dueños del teatro no pensaron que fuera a tener mucha repercusión, pero el público comenzó a gritar "otra vez! Otra vez!" hasta que finalmente se encendieron las luces para que la gente se fuera.

Película completa
Duración: 9 minutos 42 segundos

"The Great Train Robbery" became the first important western and the one that established the western as a unique film genre. Its dramatic, narrative structure of "crime -- pursuit -- retribution" set the pattern for almost all future western films, and its success confirmed for the fledgling movie industry that the rising popularity of the story film was commercially viable despite its increased production costs.

"The Great Train Robbery" had its debut at Huber's Museum, a low--class vaudeville house on 14th Street in New York City. When the film was announced the theater's patrons were indifferent. But, according to G.M. Anderson, when the movie began the audience came alive. "They got up and shouted and yelled, and then when it was all over they yelled, 'Run it again! Run it again!', until [the management] finally put on the lights to chase them out." Within a week it was booked into eleven theaters in and around New York City, including the prestigious Hammerstein's Theatre at 42nd and Broadway, where it received a "rousing, rousing reception".

Dog Factory / Fábrica de perros (21 de abril de 1904 - Edison)

Original comedia de Thomas Edison filmada el 21 de abril del año 1904
Esta es la parte 1. Por el momento no encuentro la última parte. En cuanto consiga ubicarla, la pondré. De todas formas, es interesante y divertido ver este film.

In the middle of a store or factory set sits a machine identified as the "Patent Dog Transformator." On the walls behind it are coils of sausages or hot dogs, labeled with the name of the dog they represent: Pointer, Setter, Fighting Bull, Bull, Terrier, Spaniel, Poodle, Plain Dog, Trained Dog, Bull Pups, Boston Bull, Daschund sic, Mut, and Pug. At the top of the back wall is a sign that reads "Dogs made while you wait--Dog Factory--Dogs mixed to order." A bearded man in a suit stands by the machine looking bored, as his partner in a cap and apron dusts the rows of sausages. A tramp enters the store with a string of three dogs, which he sells to the man in the suit. One by one, the three dogs are loaded into the top of the machine, cranked by the man in the apron, and transformed into links of sausage that come out the right end of the contraption. These links are then hung up in their proper places on the wall: Plain Dog, Trained Dog, and Boston Bull. A man identified as a dandy with his cane and straw topper enters and orders a spaniel. The process is then reversed, as the appropriate coil of meat is taken off the wall and put in the top of the machine, resulting in a dog exiting from the left end of the transformator. The next customer, a woman, orders a dachshund, but the dog proves too jumpy for her and is changed back to a sausage; the woman then settles on a terrier, and leaves happily with her purchase end of part 1.

A 'Tough' Dance (1902)

From either side of a white, apparently outdoors, setting enter a man and woman, both wearing ragged street clothes and caps. As they approach center stage, the man grabs the woman's arm and pulls her to him, then slaps her. Still holding her arm, the man and his partner cockily strut towards the camera. The man grabs the woman in a crouched, bear-hug type of hold and they perform a rough little dance that almost seems a parody of a waltz. In a jerky type of jitterbug, the man twirls the woman out of his hold and back again, a movement which is repeated often within their spinning dance. They finally fall to the ground, still clutching each other, and roll around.


Sintéticamente: Es una pareja (aparentemente en exteriores) bailando, haciendo lo que pareciera una parodia de un vals.
Por momentos hasta pareciera una mezcla de rock and roll y chamamé... jaja

Derry (1902)

Horse Tram Cars Golden Tea Pot
Waterloo Square Strand Road
Cattle Market Rossvile Street


Tranvías a caballo
La calle Strand - Plaza Waterloo
Calle Rossvile - Mercado Cattle

El relato está en inglés y, entre otras cosas, comenta la curiosidad de chicos y grandes ante la presencia de la cámara que los está filmando. Algo que parece ser un imán para la gente, tal cual pasa actualmente...

Cabiria - de Giovanni Pastore (Italia - 1914) Parte 1/3

Película completa (FULL MOVIE).
Duración parte 1: 30 minutos 29 segundos

Subtítulos en inglés

Cabiria is a classic silent movie from the early years of Italy's movie industry, directed by Giovanni Pastrone. It was released in 1914.

The movie is based on Emilio Salgari's Cartagine in fiamme (Carthage in Flames) and Gustave Flaubert's exotic novel Salammbo. Set in ancient Carthage during the period of the Second Punic War, it treats the conflict between Rome and Carthage through the eyes of Cabiria, the title character, who is kidnapped by pirates, sold as a slave in Carthage, and rescued from being sacrificed to the god Moloch by a Roman nobleman and his muscular slave Maciste (who would later become the protagonist in a whole seuccesful series of films on his own). Hannibal and his elephants fit into the convoluted plot of this epic film.

Italian author Gabriele d'Annunzio contributed to the screenplay and wrote all of the intertitles. The movie was inventive and innovative in its cinematography for the time, and was a major influence on Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith, although film critic Roger Ebert said Griffith "moves the camera with greater freedom and has a headlong narrative and an exciting use of cross-cutting that Pastrone does not approach." [1] The film also marked the debut of the Maciste character, who went on to have a long career in Italian sword and sandal films.


A restored version of the film screened on 27 May, 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival, featuring a filmed introduction by director Martin Scorsese.

Like Birth of a Nation Cabiria has aroused its share of controversy because of the political nature of its subject matter. It was produced by Italian ultra-nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio and was released soon after the Italo-Turkish War, in which Italy conquered the North African Ottoman provinces of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The parallels in the film, about Rome conquering an inferior North African Carthage, can be seen as a celebration of Italian imperialism.

Cabiria - de Giovanni Pastore (Italia - 1914) Parte 2/3

Película completa (FULL MOVIE).
Duración parte 2: 29 minutos 03 segundos

Subtítulos en inglés

Hockey match (1898)

A game of hockey played on the pond (I assume) in 1898.

The camera stays focused on one spot throughout the clip.

Juego de hockey sobre hielo filmado el 24 de febrero de 1898 por Thomas Edison

Bicycles in Los Angeles / Bicicletas en Los Angeles (1898)

Black and white film clip of horse drawn carriages, people riding bicycles, and pedestrians traveling down South Spring Street in the mid 1890's.


Breve film en blanco y negro que muestra carruajes a caballo, gente andando en bicileta y peatones transitando por la calle South Spring.

New York City (1896)

New York City (1896)

At Herald square

The 2nd oldest film ever made, filmed in 1888

The 2nd oldest film ever made, played in diff speeds. Filmed in 1888

Según dice el texto, éste sería el segundo film de la historia del cine. Año 1888

Flag raising ceremony at Fort Sumter, April, 1865 / ceremonia de izamiento de la bandera en Fort Sumter, en abril de 1865

Time-lapse of the flag raising ceremony at Fort Sumter, April, 1865, at the end of the Civil War.

Escena de la ceremonia de izamiento de la bandera en Fort Sumter, en abril de 1865.. al final de la Guerra Civil norteamericana. Si no me equivoco, está hecho con fotografías pasadas sucesivamente.

Contorsionista callejero (Edison - 1898)

Contorsionista callejero filmado por Edison en 1898

Female Boxing at The Roseland Ballroom (1920's) - Boxeo Femenino en el Roseland Ballroom

Sigo con el tema de las mujeres boxeadoras. En este caso es una comedia. Se puede ver al término del round, cómo atienden a las contendientes en sus rincones: rápida y eficientemente reparan los daños en el maquillaje... jaja

Cute clip of female boxers as a novelty act at the Roseland. Corner "men" reapply makeup between rounds.

Images of DDay / Imágenes del Día D (6 de junio de 1944)

Images of mainly British troops on DDay. June 6th 1944.

Principalmente, imágenes de las tropas británicas durante el Día D. 6 de junio de 1944