Dickson Experimental Sound Film
Top 2 Billed Cast
Self
Similar Movies
Down Beat Bear(en)
A dancing bear escapes from the zoo and finds his way to Tom and Jerry's house. He dances with Tom, making it impossible for Tom to call the authorities; Jerry takes every opportunity to play music and keep Tom and the bear dancing
Donald's Dilemma(en)
Donald and Daisy are walking when he is hit by a flowerpot. He's convinced he's a famous singer, and he croons divinely, but does not recognize Daisy. He in fact does become famous. Daisy is devastated by her inability to get over him and sees a psychiatrist. He tells her she has to choose between the world having Donald, or her getting him back. She picks herself, and drops another flowerpot, which restores him.
Far Far Away Idol(en)
Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Puss in Boots, and the rest of the Far Far Away Kingdom battle it out in a singing competition.
Every Child(en)
This animated short follows an unwanted baby who is passed from house to house. The film is the Canadian contribution to an hour-long feature film celebrating UNESCO's Year of the Child (1979). It illustrates one of the ten principles of the Declaration of Children's Rights: every child is entitled to a name and a nationality. The film took home an Oscar® for Best Animated Short Film.
Time Piece(en)
Dislocation in time, time signatures, time as a philosophical concept, and slavery to time are some of the themes touched upon in this 9-minute experimental film, which was written, directed, and produced by Jim Henson. Screened for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in May of 1965, "Time Piece" enjoyed an eighteen-month run at one Manhattan movie theater and was nominated for an Academy Award for Outstanding Short Subject.
The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat(en)
The Cat in the Hat is all set for a lovely picnic, but the evil Grinch changes his plans by inventing a contraption that captures noise and makes it sound ferocious. The Cat has to save the world from the clutches of the Grinch and the only way to do it is to reach Grinch's soft spot.
Puce Moment(en)
Puce Moment is a short 6 minute film by Kenneth Anger, author of the Hollywood Babylon books, filmed in 1949. Puce Moment resulted from the unfinished short film Puce Women. The film opens with a camera watching 1920s style flapper gowns being taken off a dress rack. The dresses are removed and danced off the rack to music. (The original soundtrack was Verdi opera music; in the 1960s, Anger re-released the film with a new psychedelic folk-rock soundtrack performed by Jonathan Halper.) A long-lashed woman, Yvonne Marquis, dresses in the purple puce gown and walks to her vanity to apply perfume. She lies on a chaise lounge which then begins to move around the room and eventually out to a patio. Borzois appear and she prepares to take them for a walk.
Scorpio Rising(en)
A gang of Nazi bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together.
Destino(en)
Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.
Melody(en)
Although Gainsbourg and Birkin had appeared in a string of films since their magnetic collision in Pierre Grimblat’s Slogan, Melody was a bit of diversion from their collaborations since it’s a series of interwoven videos inspired by the Gainsbourgalbum. For '71 it’s a novel concept to bring visual life to an LP, but even more surprising are the short film’s amazing visuals that director Averty crafted using a wealth of video filters, overlays, camera movements and chroma key effects. Averty applies these in tandem with the increasing tone of Gainsbourg’s songs, which more or less chronicle an older man's affair with a young girl. Each song is comprised of steady, sometimes brooding poetic delivery, with refrains timed to the phrase repeats of each song, while Alan Parker’s buzzing guitar accompanies and wiggles around Gainsbourg’s resonant voice. The bass is fat and groovy, the drums easy but steady, and the periodic use of strings or rich vibrato makes this short a sultry little gem.
Hollywood Handicap(en)
A group of stable hands is given a race horse when its owner retires from the business. They raise money to run the horse in the Hollywood Derby at Santa Anita race track. Many Hollywood personalities attend the event.
Streamlined Swing(en)
A group of African-American waiters on a railway believe they have made a deal to secure a railroad dining car that they set up on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles as a diner. To bring in customers, they sing, their voices providing most of the musical accompaniment as well. At the diner, in front of a crowd of swells, the police deliver the bad news.
A Visit from the Incubus(en)
Lucy, a young Victorian woman in the Old West, is being tormented by nightly visits from an incubus. Her friend Madeleine tries to console her, but is unable to help. A fallen woman, Lucy gets a job singing at the local saloon. However, the Incubus has followed her there; and things take an unexpected turn as Lucy and the Incubus, amidst the rowdy cowboys and saucy can-can girls, have their final showdown.
Merbabies(en)
Walt Disney enlisted former colleagues Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising to help create this underwater Silly Symphony. Ocean waves form merbabies who are summoned to an aquatic circus playground on the sea floor, where they interact with a parade of seahorses, starfish and other marine life, before disappearing into the surface from which they came.
The Old Mill(en)
Night in an old mill is dramatically depicted in this Oscar-winning short in which the frightened occupants, including birds, timid mice, owls, and other creatures try to stay safe and dry as a storm approaches. As the thunderstorm worsens, the mill wheel begins to turn and the whole mill threatens to blow apart until at last the storm subsides.
Johann Mouse(en)
At the home of Viennese composer Johann Strauss lived Johann Mouse. Whenever the composer played his waltzes, the mouse would dance to the music, unable to control himself. One day, when Strauss was away, the house cat played his master's music. When word got out about a piano-playing cat and a dancing mouse, they were commanded to perform for the emperor.
Mickey's Grand Opera(en)
Mickey is preparing to conduct an opera when he chases Pluto away. Pluto crashes into a magician's props backstage and spars with the hat, its rabbits, and its doves. The opera begins: Clarabelle plays flute, Clara and Donald are the leads in Romeo and Juliet. Pluto follows the magic hat onstage, to Mickey's growing annoyance. The hat falls into a tuba, and soon the animals are filling the stage.
The Goddess of Spring(en)
The goddess is greeted by dancing flowers and fairies. The devil comes and takes her away to be his queen. She's despondent, as winter settles in above ground. But the devil isn't happy either, and offers anything to make her happy. They reach an agreement: she'll spend six months above ground and six below. Thus we have seasons.
The Pied Piper(en)
The people of Hamelin, overrun with rats, offer a bag of gold to anyone who can get rid of the rats. A piper offers to do the job, and successfully lures the rats into a mirage of cheese, which disappears. The citizens, disappointed that all he did was play a tune, offer only pocket change. The piper, angered, plays a new tune that has all the children of the city follow him, even the new twins the stork is preparing to deliver.
Symphony Hour(en)
Mickey guest-directs a radio orchestra. The sponsor loves the rehearsal, but come the actual performance, Goofy drops all the instruments under an elevator, so they sound like toys. The sponsor hates it, but the audience loves it anyway.
Recommendations Movies
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory(fr)
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
A Secret Love(en)
Amid shifting times, two women kept their decades-long love a secret. But coming out later in life comes with its own set of challenges.
Annie Oakley(xx)
Annie Oakley was probably the most famous marksman/woman in the world when this short clip was produced in Edison's Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. Barely five feet tall, Annie was always associated with the wild west, although she was born in 1860 as Phoebe Ann Oakley Mozee (or Moses)in Darke County, Ohio. Nevertheless, she was a staple in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and similar wild west companies. Because of her diminutive stature, she was billed as "Little Sure Shot." The man assisting her is this appearance is probably her husband, Frank E. Butler. Annie had outshot Butler (a famous dead-eye marksman himself) in a shooting contest in the 1880's. Instead of nursing his bruised ego because he had been throughly outgunned by a woman, Butler fell in love, married Little Sure Shot, and became her manager.
Around a Cabin(dz)
The film consists of a series of animations on a beach containing two beach huts and a diving board. Two characters play at diving into the water from the diving board and then appear on the beach. The woman begins to play with a small dog and is then joined by a gentleman. The two play around on the beach before getting changed into bathing costumes and going into the water. They bob up and down in the water before swimming out of the scene. Once the couple have gone a man sails out in a boat.
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze(xx)
A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the second motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States.
Poor Pierrot(fr)
One night, Arlequin comes to see his lover Colombine. But then Pierrot knocks at the door and Colombine and Arlequin hide. Pierrot starts singing but Arlequin scares him and the poor man goes away.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure(en)
Bill and Ted are high school buddies starting a band. They are also about to fail their history class—which means Ted would be sent to military school—but receive help from Rufus, a traveller from a future where their band is the foundation for a perfect society. With the use of Rufus' time machine, Bill and Ted travel to various points in history, returning with important figures to help them complete their final history presentation.
Se7en(en)
Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on the "seven deadly sins" in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Somerset researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer's mind, while his novice partner, Mills, scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.
Fight Club(en)
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
The Lighthouse(en)
Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
Fanny and Alexander(sv)
As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers(en)
Frodo Baggins and the other members of the Fellowship continue on their sacred quest to destroy the One Ring--but on separate paths. Their destinies lie at two towers--Orthanc Tower in Isengard, where the corrupt wizard Saruman awaits, and Sauron's fortress at Barad-dur, deep within the dark lands of Mordor. Frodo and Sam are trekking to Mordor to destroy the One Ring of Power while Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn search for the orc-captured Merry and Pippin. All along, nefarious wizard Saruman awaits the Fellowship members at the Orthanc Tower in Isengard.
The First Omen(en)
When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.
A Fistful of Dollars(it)
The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.
Memento(en)
Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he's going, or why.
Bananas(en)
When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.
The Purple Rose of Cairo(en)
Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' in hopes of raising her spirits, where she watches dashing archaeologist Tom Baxter time and again.
The Deer Hunter(en)
A group of working-class friends decide to enlist in the Army during the Vietnam War and finds it to be hellish chaos -- not the noble venture they imagined. Before they left, Steven married his pregnant girlfriend -- and Michael and Nick were in love with the same woman. But all three are different men upon their return.
Rear Window(en)
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
The Road(en)
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.