Robert Paul Films
These shorts are all by Robert Paul. They include comedies and early documentaries, with some drama.
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17 titles
- StarsSidney Birt AcresAnnie CashHenry ShortGenre: ?? (film is currently lost; only several stills survive)
- DirectorRobert W. PaulThe Derby is an 1896 British short black-and-white silent documentary film, produced and directed by Birt Acres for exhibition on Robert W. Paul's Kinetoscopes, featuring the end of the 29 May 1895 Epsom Derby viewed from a raised position close to the finishing line with the main stand in the distance. A stationary camera looks diagonally across a racetrack toward the infield showing the horses as they pass. Once the horses have passed the camera it is clear that the race has come to an end and there is a close finish between three horses. Once the race is over police officers run onto the field. The camera also displays various members of the audience moving around.Genre: Actuality
- DirectorHenry ShortThe water beats relentlessly against the Hell's Mouth (Boca do Inferno), one of the main natural attractions of Lisbon's west coast, filmed from above almost in a vertical plunge onto the deep, rocky ground.Genre: Actuality
- DirectorRobert W. PaulThe insignia visible on the train identifies it as Queen Victoria's own personal conveyance, and the presence of the monarch (or at least a very senior member of the Royal Family) is suggested by the large crowds that have gathered to witness its arrival, as well as the formal police guard of honor. If this was indeed taken in 1896, this would make Royal Train one of the oldest films depicting the British monarchy, albeit on this occasion from a discreet distance. The following year, Paul would shoot the celebrations for Victoria's Diamond Jubilee from a great many vantage points.Genre: Actuality
- DirectorRobert W. PaulAn actuality record of Blackfriars Bridge, London, taken from the southern end looking northwards over the Thames by R.W.Paul in July 1896. It was screened as part of his Alhambra Theatre programme shortly afterwards, certainly no later than 31 August, as it is included in a printed programme of that date (as 'Traffic on Blackfriars Bridge'). Two or three of the pedestrians seem aware of the camera's presence, though not to any particularly noticeable extent.Genre: Actuality
- DirectorRobert W. PaulAmongst the most interesting of these is that representing the scene of the music hall sports at Herne-Hill. The particular event depicted is the costume race, and the manner in which the competitors scramble into their fancy dresses and tear down the course causes the heartiest merriment.Genre: Comedy
- Passenger drops child from steam launch; it is rescued by swimmer from river bank.Genre: Drama
- DirectorRobert W. PaulMany of the cyclists are women, and wearing skirts. Although women had been riding bicycles since the 1880s, it was only towards the end of the 1890s that they could do so comfortably without wearing trouser-like garments such as bloomers, as the design of early bicycles made riding in skirts impossible. This had been controversial for observers and cyclists alike, the former because they were convinced that women in 'male' outfits or even split skirts were immoral in some way, the latter because wearing such garments suggested a radical political outlook that they might not possess.The side of the road is lined with promenading onlookers, and the pace of the cyclists and pony-traps is gentle and leisurely, suggesting a Sunday outing of some kind.Genre: Actuality
- DirectorRobert W. PaulOne of the prettiest pictures of child life we have yet offered. Two pretty children are seated in their high chairs playing "Tea Party" with their dishes arranged about them. They become engaged in a dispute over the possession of a piece of cake and one of them cries, giving the most perfect and child-like facial expressions we have yet had the pleasure of seeing.Genre: Comedy
- DirectorRobert W. PaulA couple look at a statue while eating in an art gallery.Genre: Comedy (fragment)
- DirectorWalter R. BoothAn express train crashes into a goods train and plunges down an embankment.Genre: Reenactment (with model set)
- DirectorRobert W. PaulA satire on the way that audiences unaccustomed to the cinema didn't know how to react to the moving images on a screen - in this film, an unsophisticated (and stereotypical) country yokel is alternately baffled and terrified, in the latter case by the apparent approach of a steam trainGenre: Comedy (fragment)
- DirectorRobert W. PaulStarsAlfred CollinsA stationary camera looks on as two dapper gents play a game of chess. One drinks and smokes, and when he looks away, his opponent moves two pieces. A fight ensues, first with the squirting of a seltzer bottle, then with fisticuffs. The combatants wrestle each other to the floor and continue the fight out of the camera's view, hidden by the table. The waiter arrives to haul both of them out.Genre: Comedy
- DirectorWalter R. BoothRobert W. PaulA man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's stationary range. The cop runs after the cab, the woman dashes to the body. The cop brings back the driver; is the victim dead?Genre: Comedy
- DirectorRobert W. PaulA barmaid plies a swell with smiles and with cherries from a box that's just been delivered. When she refuses a cherry to a roughly-dressed tradesman who runs a tab at the bar, he pays off his debt in a huff, using all his week's pay. He then storms penniless and without provisions into his ill-furnished house where his wife and two children, ill-clad and ill-fed, cower. Is there any hope for him and for his family? If he does realize how low he's sunk, what help is there to lift him up? Will the family ever know the taste of cherries?Genre: Drama
- DirectorWalter R. BoothA British trick film in which a motorist ends up driving around the rings of Saturn.Genre: Comedy