

Georges Méliès' adaptation of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is most distinguished, today, for being a color film of the classic story. Color was rare in 1902 (and many years after) as non-tinted color has to be hand painted on the film; this was an arduous task. Also notable is the film's short running time of approximately five minutes. Much of the original work is not covered, but viewers were expected to be familiar with the story, and enjoy the filmed highlights. There are a couple of scenes missing; according to contemporary reports, Gulliver's shipwreck was certainly included. You can do a lot in a few minutes, as Mr. Méliès includes a re-make of his own "Une partie de cartes" (1896), which already looked like something previously covered by the Lumière Brothers.

Georges Méliès' adaptation of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is most distinguished, today, for being a color film of the classic story. Color was rare in 1902 (and many years after) as non-tinted color has to be hand painted on the film; this was an arduous task. Also notable is the film's short running time of approximately five minutes. Much of the original work is not covered, but viewers were expected to be familiar with the story, and enjoy the filmed highlights. There are a couple of scenes missing; according to contemporary reports, Gulliver's shipwreck was certainly included. You can do a lot in a few minutes, as Mr. Méliès includes a re-make of his own "Une partie de cartes" (1896), which already looked like something previously covered by the Lumière Brothers.
1902-11-22
5.977
7.1A derelict, huddled under the steps of a missionary church, feels enlightened by the sermon of a passionate preacher and infatuated by the beauty of the congregation's pianist, in such a way that he tries to improve his life of poverty by becoming a policeman. His first assignment will be to patrol along Easy Street, the turf of a vicious bully and his criminal gang.
6.8A gardener is watering his flowers, when a mischievous boy sneaks up behind his back, and puts a foot on the water hose. The gardener is surprised and looks into the nozzle to find out why the water has stopped coming. The boy then lifts his foot from the hose, whereby the water squirts up in the gardener's face. The gardener chases the boy, grips his ear and slaps him in his buttocks. The boy then runs away and the gardener continues his watering. Three separate versions of this film exist, this is the original, filmed by Louis Lumière.
5.7An inventor dreams that his newly designed airship takes flight.
6.9Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.
7.4Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.
6.9In the seaside town of Boulogne, no one seems to be able to cope with their past, least of all Hélène, an antique furniture saleswoman, her stepson Bernard, and her former lover Alphonse.
4.9Jason ships out aboard a teen-filled "love boat" bound for New York, which he soon transforms into the ultimate voyage of the damned.
8.0Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.
7.4Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
6.8The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.
7.1Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.
7.1A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
3.6Two friends in Mexico discover the Lament Configuration and unleash Pinhead, but one decides to try to survive by swapping himself with someone else. Once they go missing, family members go in search of them, but find Pinhead instead.
6.6Whitney Wolfe uses extraordinary grit and ingenuity to break into the male-dominated tech industry.
8.0In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.
6.4Five strangers board a train and are joined by a mysterious fortune teller who offers to read their Tarot cards. Five separate stories unfold: An architect returns to his ancestoral home to find a werewolf out for revenge; a doctor discovers his new wife is a vampire; a huge plant takes over a house; a musician gets involved with voodoo; an art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.
6.3After a doctor kills his mistress and himself while researching the mysterious previous owner of his Boston home, his colleague, Dr. Norman Boyle, takes over his studies and moves his family into the Boston mansion. Soon after, Boyle's young son Bob becomes plagued by visions of a young girl, who warns him of the danger within the house.
5.3Three generations of the same family deal with the consequences of unleashing the forces of hell.
7.7The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.
6.8A homeless bum, bored of eating the same food every night, promises his girlfriend a special dinner. He plans to take her out with money robbed from a passing stranger. But the bum’s in for a surprise when the man he targets for his mugging turns out to have special – and hilarious – powers.
7.9Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.
6.0This film is the pearl of his pioneer work in Madeira Island and captures the most of his methodology: good stories taking the most of Madeira's natural scenery, and provoking the audience with some ironic and "double-sense" scenes. The film tells the story of an English girl travelling with her father, a botanic, and a guide from madeira in the deep mountains of the island. The girl has some mental disturbs and is always scaring about an attack from the native man, appearing as a half-man/half-monster.
6.0Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster.
7.2Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.
6.4The navy captain Avanti Planetaros is inspired by his astronomer-father to travel through outer space to reach other worlds. He becomes an aviator and, along with the young scientist Dr. Krafft, the driving force behind the construction of a space-ship. Despite oppostion from the mocking Professor Dubius, Planetaros gathers a crew of fearless men and takes off. During the long voyage, the crew becomes restless; a mutiny is narrowly avoided. Finally, they reach Mars and discover that the planet is inhabited by people who have reached a higher stage of development, free of diseases, sorrow, violence, sexual urges, and the fear of death. Avanti falls in love with Marya, daughter of the Prince of Wisdom, the head of the Martians. Marya shares his feelings and decides to return with him in order to bring the wisdom of the Martians to the backward Earthlings. (stumfilm.dk)
6.2Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his "mad doctor" roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions -- least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the "heroine" and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor.
7.0In 16th-century Prague, a rabbi creates the Golem - a giant creature made of clay. Using sorcery, he brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.
5.9A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.
4.0Deep water freediving exposes its practitioners to a form of narcosis, which induces several symptoms, among which a feeling of euphoria and levity that earned this phenomenon its nickname of "raptures of the deep". The short film relates the interior journey of Guillaume Néry, the apnea world champion, during one of his deep water dives. It draws its inspiration from his physical experience and the narrative of his hallucinations.
0.0Under the supervision of the tyrannous ruler Supremo, a fleet of aliens responsible for the creation of the universe conduct their daily work around the Milky Way. Among them is a curious alien called Melius, who dreams of leaving their weary job as a star polisher to explore distant planets. When the space probe ‘Voyager 1’ crashes into their ship, Melius sees their chance of escaping using the probe’s coordinates for planet Earth. What follows is an adventure full of extraordinary surprises and new friends, where our hero will be forced to choose between duty and love, their teachings and beliefs.
6.8Jackie is a boy who is so trapped by his fears and doubts that he could not communicate with anyone. Then, a magic dragon named Puff comes to help Jackie by taking his soul force on a wonderous voyage to his island of Honah Lee. Along the way, they have adventures that nurture Jackie's imagination and courage in unorthodox ways.
7.5Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.
[…] A reel was shot of the Noh drama Momiji-gari (Maple Leaf Hunters, or Viewing Scarlet Maple Leaves), in which Danjuro played opposite Onoe Kikugoro V (1844-1903) as an ogress who has disguised herself as the Princess Sarashina. Filmed by Shibata Tsunekichi in the open air on a windy day in November 1899, Danjuro would allow only the one take, so that when his fan blew away in mid-performance the scene had to stay. The film re-emerged at the Kikikan theatre in 1907 where it was a great success and inspired a wave of fiction filmmaking based on traditional Japanese narratives. (cont. http://victorian-cinema.net/danjuro)
6.2A man wakes up in a blue room. He's stuck and he can't escape. A window is his only connection to the outer world. It filters the reality in a very mysterious way.
7.0A dying professor leaves his great-nephew a collection of documents pertaining to the Cthulhu Cult. The nephew begins to learn why the study of the cult so fascinated his grandfather. Bit-by-bit he begins piecing together the dread implications of his grandfather's inquiries, and soon he takes on investigating the Cthulhu cult as a crusade of his own.
6.4A two-reel adaptation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno from the Divine Comedy by Helios Film. It is less well-known than the five-reel feature produced the same year by Milano Films, but it was released earlier in 1911.
6.3A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.