Best Movies of 1910

An early version of the classic, based more on the 1902 stage musical than on the original novel.

"Percy Smith (1880-1944) was world famous as a photographer of plant life. Probably the first British example of time-lapse photography as applied to the growth of plants." Monthly Film Bulletin, November 1955.

A certain professor of chemistry discovers two substances that, combined, make it possible to contravene the laws of gravity, a discovery that will have unexpected consequences for him.

Made by the Edison Manufacturing Company and directed by Edwin S. Porter, the film starred Gladys Hulette as Alice. Being a silent film, naturally all of Lewis Carroll's nonsensical prose could not be used, and, being only a one-reel picture, most of Carroll's memorable characters in his original 1865 novel similarly could not be included. What was used in the film was faithful in spirit to Carroll, and in design to the original John Tenniel illustrations. Variety complimented the picture by comparing it favorably to the "foreign" film fantasies then flooding American cinemas.

Propped upon the tail-end of a match, a housefly performs astonishing feats, alternately juggling a series of objects - a blade of grass, a cork, a miniature dumbbell… Most extraordinary of all is the sequence in which the fly spins a ball twice its own size, while a second fly perches on top. In the final sequence, the fly repeats some of its earlier tricks while apparently seated on a tiny chair.

In this story set at a seaside fishing village and inspired by a Charles Kingsley poem, a young couple's happy life is turned about by an accident. The husband, although saved from drowning, loses his memory. A child is on the way, and soon a daughter is born to his wife. We watch the passage of time, as his daughter matures and his wife ages. The daughter becomes a lovely young woman, herself ready for marriage. One day on the beach, the familiarity of the sea and the surroundings triggers a return of her father's memory, and we are reminded that although people age and change, the sea and the ways of the fisherfolk remain eternal.

The Indians send a young chief to Washington as representative before lawmakers and cabinet, to secure justice and proper redress for the fraudulent barter of their lands, to which outrages they have been subjected, owing to their helplessness to prevent it. Smighting is very much perturbed at this possible hindrance which threatens to upset his apparently successful land fraud, and he immediately convenes a caucus at the capitol of those legislators of his brand who can be approached for the ultimate motive of securing the passage of the "Land Grab" bill. To doubly ensure the accomplishment of his desire, he enlists the services of his family-- in that he instructs his daughter to exert her charm over the young Indian so as to keep him away from the object of his visit.

This is not the Faust which Méliès made, but another version. The last half of the film is missing. It is interesting to note how, in an effort to let the audience know what the actors were thinking, visions were used as here when the tapestry on the wall gives place to Marguerite’s memory of her meeting with Faust.

No Overview

The day before the Christmas holiday, Ebenezer Scrooge, a hard-fisted miser, refuses to contribute to the Charity Relief Committee, and then rudely rejects his nephew Fred when he visits Scrooge in his office. When Scrooge returns home, he sees the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him of the punishment he will suffer in the next life if he does not change his ways. That night, Scrooge is visited by three more spirits, who show him his past, the present, and the future that awaits him.

During the Civil War, a father living in a border state leaves to join the Union Army. After he leaves, Confederate troops forage on his property, where a soldier encounters one of his daughters. The father himself is wounded on a hazardous mission and must run for his life, pursued by Confederate soldiers.

The opening scene of our story shows a Union powder wagon making its way down the road convoyed by a company of mounted Union soldiers. The route of this wagon is reported to Confederate headquarters by one of its spies. Nan, a girl frequently employed by the department of the Confederate army, is called to headquarters and instructed to secure the destruction of the enemy's ammunition train just reported. Nan is fitted out with a Union uniform, mounted on a fast horse and sent on her journey, previously provided with a forged order supposedly signed by a Union general which authorizes her to pass through the lines.

A couple visiting New York City leave their hotel, and take a sight-seeing car to tour the city. They start with Grant's Tomb, and then go to Central Park and Times Square. At Luna Park, they feed the pigeons and enjoy some of the rides. They then continue to visit other sections of town, and they see some of the city's most prominent buildings.

New York City police catch thieves and stop runaway horses.

In this Western, the sergeant takes his commander’s daughter on a horseback ride along the Merced River (which actually might be Oregon's Clackamas River). When their horses are stolen by a renegade, they are forced to travel back to headquarters by foot and lose the trail. In the first clip, mounted troops search for the lost couple. The two are found the next day and the sergeant is disgraced. However, the sergeant proves his mettle when he escapes during an Indian attack and leads reinforcements to the rescue.

Two Johns, a Confederate and an Union soldier, leave their families to go to the front. After a skirmish they end up separated from their respective sides, the Union soldier shoots the Confederate, but he has to escape and look for refuge in the house of his enemy.

A frantic child reports to the tribal chief that her father killed her mother. The tribe chases and captures the man, dragging him back for tribal justice.

Here we have an old scholar/alchemist brooding over a book, challenged by the devil, and going through the familiar sorcery to create a woman by throwing pieces of clothing against a stain-glass church window, like a jigsaw puzzle (and later in reverse). The woman also multiplies herself five-fold so as to match a similar paravent.

Doctors blow to pieces a patient in a hydrotherapy machine and re-assemble him.

In the heart of the American west, a miner toils day after day at his rocker box while his young daughter keeps his camp. His daughter persuades him to return to civilization, where they may enjoy the fruits of their labor. Both are happy in the anticipation of what seems a bright future. While she's away, a desert wanderer appears at the camp, and at the sight of the old man weighing his gold is seized with cupidity. He himself had toiled long in the wilds, but with no success, so he demands that the old man divide his gains with him. This, of course, the miner decries, and the wanderer uses force to obtain the old man's gold. The wanderer collapses in the desert, only to be rescued by a certain young woman: the miner's daughter.

A wealthy, callous moneylender finds a terrifying way to learn about money's limitations.

An experiment goes wrong and blinds a newly married chemist. The chemist's wife does not want to take on the burden of caring for the blind chemist, and her younger sister take her place.

Ramona, a young girl growing up on her adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian lad Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the two lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the bigotry and greed of the white landowners.

Typical morality tale has a Deacon coming onto a "wild child" (Dorothy West) but after she rejects him he goes back into town saying that the girl and her mother are witches.

Two spinsters on their way to church, are accosted by a couple of burly tramps. When Mabel is called to the church meeting with her mother, she sends Muggsy a note asking him to meet her after the service so he may walk home with her. Muggsy is there on time, however, the old ladies are afraid to make the return trip unaccompanied. The pastor asks that a man escort them home. Poor Muggsy gets chosen, and when the trio reach the deserted part of the road, the tramps again appear.

When Viola and her twin brother Sebastian are shipwrecked and separated, Viola dresses in her brother's clothes and becomes a page in the palace of the Duke of Orsino. Thinking Viola is a boy, the Duke sends her with a message to Olivia, whom he loves. A series of complications begins when Olivia falls in love with the page 'boy'

Mazie lends her necklace to Nellie, her guest. Nellie is asleep in a hammock when Sam, her sweetheart, arrives in his auto. He awakens Nellie with a kiss. As she starts up she drops the necklace in the grass and their efforts to find it prove futile. Sam promises to buy her one to replace it, thinking it was her own properly. He has her minutely describe it that he may get an exact duplicate. Meanwhile, the governess has found the necklace and given it to its owner, Mazie, who is unknown to Sam. He sees it on Mazie's neck and after a chase insists on purchasing it.

After her mother's death, Ruth struggles to support herself as a seamstress. While Ruth delivers shirts to the factory owner, the owner's son steals some money and Ruth is accused of the crime. She flees the ghetto of New York's Lower East Side and hides in the country where she meets a young farmer.

Two nice young people become acquainted at the beach; a romance develops.

Adonese is returning home from seeing the woman he is courting, and he is driving around a corner when his car accidentally brushes against the tramp 'Faithful' and knocks him over. Feeling sorry for him, Adonese helps him up and buys him a new suit of clothes. The naively innocent Faithful reads too much into this gesture, and he begins to follow his benefactor everywhere, expecting to receive future gifts.

A young man leaves Ireland for America, but doesn't forget home.

A young man transforms his uncle's palatial residence into a sanitarium only to end up paying back the money his patients gave him.

A rich nobleman steals a perfume merchant's wife just prior to the French Revolution, in which the perfumer is a leader of the peasants. His priest made him swear an oath to leave vengeance to God, however.

Using a futuristic submarine, pirates kidnap a young couple, torpedo a passenger ship, travel under the sea to salvage bullion, then make their escape by taking to the air.

A man is captured by Indians after swearing off all women.

Peggy is a high-spirited young woman from a poor family. One day she catches the eye of a wealthy lord, who proposes marriage and wants to introduce her into his social circle. But complications arise when the lord's nephew also becomes attracted to Peggy.

Two sisters want to know whether there is romance in their future. One sister pulls the petals off of a flower, while the other has her fortune told by a gypsy. When the gypsy tells the fortune so as to serve his own purposes, complications soon develop.

A Fallen Spirit (L'Epee du spirite, 1910) by pioneer filmmaker Segundo de Chomón is a fantasy swashbuckler that opens with the arrival at an inn of a musketeer who possesses a magic sword.

A British trick film with stop-motion animation by an unknown film maker.

Mr. Bumptious insists on wallpapering the parlor himself, in order to save money.

This picture tells the story of Lucy Dane, a Canadian lumberman's daughter, and of Will Harding's love for her. Will is a worthy young surveyor and Lucy feels honored to have his love, and returns it. Jose, a half-breed trapper, adores Lucy and necessarily dislikes Will, whom he correctly counts his successful rival. More, he bears Will a grudge for responding to Lucy's cries for help when he forced his attentions on her in a lonely neck of the woods.

Robinet is challenged to a duel, but owing to an overpowering fear, ludicrously depictd, the weapons are discarded, one by one, and two bottles of champagne subistituted. (Moving Picture world Synopsis)

A bunch of yokels are amusing themselves by giving themselves shocks with a wind-up electrical generator. Leontine steals it, and rushes off to try its effects on several other groups of people in this funny comedy.

A young couple’s love is forbidden by the girl’s father. He forces her to write a farewell letter. Three years later, the Civil War begins and the father dies. At the end of the war, her boyfriend comes to visit her and all the suffering is forgotten.

A short Western. Ivi, the beautiful daughter of an Indian chief, has three suitors. A competition will decide who gets to marry her. The winner is not Panther, who was Ivy’s favourite. But after he manages to catch a horse thief, he does wind up marrying her after all.

Harry loved Betty, and vice versa, but Harry was very shy. No matter how he tried, he never could muster up sufficient courage to propose, despite the fact that Betty always endeavored to help him out. An idea! He writes his proposal, and invents a sentimental code of signals. The letter reads: "If you will accept me, wear red roses; if you are in doubt, the pink. If you do not love me and reject me, wear the white."

Mr. Hallate is leaving for a trip and his loving wife is helping him to get his belongings out with him. At last everything is ready and she goes on the stoop and watches him get into the rig. Augustus Slip, who happens to pass at this moment, sees her and, like other men of small stature, becomes deeply enamored with the ponderous Mrs. Hallate. He goes and purchases a bouquet and, returning to the house, walks into the parlor and forces his attentions on Mrs. Hallate. She, however, will have none of him, and as he refuses to leave, flies for revenge to the maid in the kitchen. The maid happens to be entertaining her friend, Officer O'Brien, and Mrs. Hallate is indeed glad to see a limb of the law, and requests him to eject the eloquent Augustus. Meantime, Mr. Hallate has missed his train, and accordingly returns to his home. Augustus hearing him enter, hides behind a curtain, and when the officer enters Hallate is the only man in sight.

Léontine -- to give her her due accent marks -- was a comedienne who played a young girl in a series of comedies about this time, in which she wreaked havoc. She does it here, as she helps the movers shift stuff downstairs.

Edwin Thanhouser re-made The Vicar of Wakefield in 1917 as a eight-reel feature film providing us with a frame of reference for the maturation of film language and cinematic techniques over the ensuing eight year period.