Videoteca

location_onCharles Urban Trading Company, London, UKpublicGB

A Canine Sherlock Holmes 1912 star_border 6.2
A dog leads a detective to a robber's hideout and fetches the police.

The Jester's Joke 1912 star_border 6.5
A cheeky female jester uses the smoke of her cigarette to make things appear and disappear. After showing her talents by playing with a chair or a dog, she lets clowns appear; one female, and two male. The male clowns fight each other over the girl who gets changed over and over again by the jester.

Banks of the Nile 1911 star_border 5
With a dual motion a cruise ship and a fishing boat pass one another on the Nile and butlers in turbans set up a wooden gangway. Thanks to a rope and pulley system cows climb skywards then disappear into the hold of the sailing vessel. On the bank, black-haired women rock back and forth, bursting out laughing and showing the first signs of going into a state of trance. Never-before filmed gestures and faces of the people of the Nile succeed one another, uprooted to an unknown, magical world. The Banks of the Nile is one of the first experiments of film in colour that uses the Kinemacolor process.

Modern China 1910
A short documentary about China in the early 20th Century.

Animated Cotton 1909 star_border 4
It might not take you long to cotton on to the trick of this film, but the results are still impressive. Though the various strings, wools and embroideries if this film are certainly animated in one sense, it is not through stop-motion animation. The time-consuming process of manipulating threads frame-by-frame is avoided by simply using reverse film techniques.

Building and Operating a British Railway 1909
Documentary about building a engine.

The Airship Destroyer 1909 star_border 6
An inventor uses a wireless controlled flying torpedo to destroy enemy airships.

A Juvenile Scientist 1907
Punished for mistreating the family pets, a young boy uses his chemistry set to wreak revenge on his parents.

Diabolo Nightmare 1907 star_border 4.5
A clerk, unable to stop playing the game of Diabolo, strays in and out of precarious situations while playing with the toy.

Torpedo Attack on H.M.S. Dreadnought 1907
This fragment comprises just over half of the original film and features a parade of partially-submerged submarines and destroyers launching torpedoes into netting rigged alongside the Dreadnought.

Willie's Magic Wand 1907 star_border 5.3
A magician's son plays tricks with his father's magic wand.

The Waif and the Statue 1907
A statue of Hope revives and finds a home for a waif.

Naval Attack on Portsmouth 1907
A battle between two forces takes place. There's no information on this 4-minute film aside from the fact that it was available from Charles Urban's Urban Trading Company, one of the most vigorous of British film production and distribution companies in the era. It's a well-composed and edited piece for 1907. The uniforms of the opposing forces, one in dark uniforms and one in white, under battle standards with the Union Jack look good. The field pieces and the medics transporting the wounded are likewise believable, although the compositions, if anything, look too good for it to have been war games; likewise, the smoke from the artillery obscures the action.

When the Devil Drives 1907
The devil hijacks a train trip in France. Made by magician turned filmmaker Walter Booth, who established the Charles Urban Trading Company to make films in his own London garden.

The Hand of the Artist 1906 star_border 4.9
Animated film featuring the hand of Walter R. Booth drawing a coster and his donah who come to life and dance. The hand then crumples up the paper and dispenses it in the form of confetti. (BFI)

The Arlberg Railway 1906 star_border 10
In 1906, the Arlberg Railway, which connects the Austrian cities of Innsbruck and Bludenz, is the only east-west mountain railway in Austria. This 340-second "ghost railroad ride" shows the view from the back of a train, though I'm not sure if it's heading east or west. This kind of film, in vogue at the time, is an intermediate form of short reality, which often showed a train engaging in a bend, and a feature documentary. Its editing is live, linear and temporal, and the cuts are very apparent. Indeed, the choices of where to place the cuts seem to have avoided the less populated stretches. There are plenty of buildings to see, even when the train is not at the station.

Siege and Surrender of Port Arthur 1905
British documentary short released in 1905.

Living London 1904
An one of the two suriving sections of Urban's original nine-part, 2,500-ft documentary, an exceptionally observant view of London life.

Execution of Li-Tang the Chunchus Chief of the Manchurian Bandits 1904
Newsreel footage of an execution by beheading of Li-Tang, the Chinches chief of a band of Manchurian bandits. Shot during the Russo Japanese war by the Charles Urban Trading Company. Charles Urban was formerly a partner with the Warwick Trading company who shot many newsreels of the day.

Grand Display of Brock's Fireworks at the Crystal Palace 1904 star_border 6.6
An actuality of the Brock's fireworks factory to celebrate its 40th anniversary organizes. The final shot has two flaming portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, originally presented by Brock's at the coronation in 1902. The film is a cornucopia of colors, as it was originally a hand-painted film. The 2011 restoration has tried to revive the brilliance and the impact of colors through digital reproduction. The original film archival print is at the National Cinema Museum.

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