Best Comedy Movies of 1899

Two women in long skirts, wearing hats, and carrying umbrellas, gossip beside a fence. Two men on the other side of the fence reach through from underneath and nail the women's skirts to the boards. Off the men run leaving the women to discover their fate. What will they do?

A couple are making love beneath the window of a cranky old gentleman. There is a handsome window garden above them filled with plants and flowers. The old gentleman throws out a rope upon the lovers to annoy them. They, not knowing what it is, seize it and pull the window garden down upon themselves.

This scene is laid in a barber shop. A customer enters and takes his seat in the chair. The barber places the cloth about his neck, sharpens his razor, and then goes mad. He seizes a huge knife, cuts the man's head off, and takes it to a table some distance away. There he lathers and shaves the face; then taking the head back to the chair, he places it in his proper position on the trunk. The customer thereupon rises, none the worse for his experience, pays his bill, and leaves the shop.

A cab is hailed in front of a palatial mansion by a gentleman who wishes a score of people driven to another part of the city. A clown jumps out and a satisfactory agreement is made between the clown and the gentleman, and a score or so of persons are hustled in one at a time until the clown succeeds in piling in the whole lot except Bridget, who is carrying a child. The persistent clown, in order to assist the nurse, who tips the scale at 400 pounds, takes the child from her. After caressing it he tosses it on top of the cab. He then picks up a board and uses it with good effect on the extremities of the fat woman, until she is forced into the cab, which drives away with its load of humanity.

A sleeping apartment of a friend who retires for the night. The rays of the moon are shining upon the bed through the window. He is suddenly awakened by a bug of gigantic proportions crawling over him. This he attacks and destroys, but before again retiring he notices three more climbing up the wall. He lights the candle and applies the flame to each, causing them to explode with fine smoke effect. After this slaughter he retires in contentment and soon sleeps the sleep of the just. A very funny subject.

The scene opens with a salesman displaying corsets to the buyer of a country store. He calls in a female model and tries a corset on her. While the buyer is looking at the figure, the salesman removes the head and arms and finally shows that instead of legs, she has a wire frame. This is one of the most effective trick pictures in our list.

A man with a heavy beard and long hair comes into a barber shop. The barber wets down his hair, does a thorough job of cutting, leaving customer with a big bald patch, then wets down his hair again, and the man leaves with his hair intact as at the start.

A monkey and his trainer do acrobatics in a small enclosure.

Leopoldo Fregoli as a flirting soldier.

Leopoldo Fregoli plays the guitar to set-up a gag.

Short film of the audience leaving the afternoon show at Circus Carré in Amsterdam. Produced by William K. Dickson’s British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.

Leopoldo Fregoli at a restaurant with a lady setting up the table.

A tramp dreams he is welcomed in a high-society parlor for tea, only to wake up and be disappointed.

Leopoldo Fregoli kissing a lady.

“Another exhibition by Prof. Leonidas' troop of cats and dogs. One of the dogs is shown stealing his dinner from the table in his master's absence. In order to cover his own crime, the dog places a cat on the table, where she is found when the master comes in.” (AMB Picture Catalogue, 1902)