Life of an American fireman. Rube and Mandy at Coney Island. The train wreckers. The strenuous life. Waiting at the church.
Notes:
The strenuous life: Kathryn Osterman.
Contents:
Life of an American fireman -- Rube and Mandy at Coney Island -- The train wreckers -- The strenuous life, or, antirace suicide -- Waiting at the church.
Summary:
Life of an American Fireman. 1903--6 min. The film is restored from an original print recently discovered by the American Film Institute Archives Program and should finally resolve the perplexing problem of its various versions and as film histories have given him credit, will expose Porter as the leading proponent of the "non-continuous" narrative style of much of early cinema. Rube and Mandy at Coney Island. 1903-13 min. This is a comedy in which two leading vaudeville performers play country bumpkins taking in the wonders of Coney Island in 1903. It is a series of comic episodes connected by a common motif rather than an integrated narrative. It demonstrates how early cinema employed close views as a code to the main structure of a film, with its final shot of Rube and Mandy enjoying hot dogs.The Train Wreckers. 1905-12 min. This popular thriller features a brave and resourceful heroine who foils the efforts of outlaws to wreck a train. It represents an intermediate stage between films such as the Great Train Robbery (1903) and Rescued By Rover (1905), and Griffith's 1909 thriller, The Lonely Villa. By separating the actions of its characters into different scenes it contains the suggestion of parallel editing yet to come, although not in the work of Edwin S Porter. Filmed on real locations, the film is visually exciting, fast-moving, and full of action, with a care for screen direction as it moves from one shot to the next. It set an Edison company record for number of prints sold of any one title up to that time. The Strenuous Life, or Antirace Suicide. 1906- 5 min. The film is about a new father who is presented with more babies then he expected. It is a good mid-scene. The semi-close up of the baby being weighed is repetition of what is known in the long shot and is not integral to the narrative structure. Waiting at the Church. 1906-7 min. The film, showing what happens when a miscreant married man is tempted to propose to a young lady, is a typical chase comedy. It contains a "daydream" inserted in the same shot with the woman who imagines it, the kind of trick effect that was a Porter specialty. The film was probably suggested by the newly introduced popular song of the same title
OCLC:
(OCoLC)827791442
Locations:
OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.