Movies: Edwin S. Porter

After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits....

Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of firemen responding to a house fire. They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from the burning ho...

On Christmas Eve, Santa feeds his reindeer and loads his sleigh, before going on his journey to deliver toys to the children of the world....

A live-action film adaptation of the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. This silent short film follows the established theme: the “Rarebit Fiend” gorges himself on rarebit and thus suffers spectacular halluci...

This is a film taken of the execution of Topsy, an elephant employed to help build Luna Park on Coney Island....

A street level view from the sidewalk, looking along the length of 23rd Street. Following actuality footage of pedestrians and street traffic, the actors, a man in summer attire and a woman in an ankle-length dress, walk toward the camera....

A documentary overview of the career of silent cinema pioneer Edwin S. Porter....

A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella....

Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk. Borrowing on cinematographic methods reminiscent of 'Georges Melies' , Porter uses animation, double exposu...

A woodsman leaves a hut followed by a woman with their baby. Nearby some men chop down a tree. The baby is left outside the hut, but an eagle flies away with it....

Uncle Josh returns in this sequel to UNCLE JOSH'S NIGHTMARE. This time he checks into a hotel, presumably to get a better nights rest than he got at home. Of course the way bad luck follows Josh around we know this is a forlorn hope. Sure enough, qui...

A French aristocrat, who has recently arrived in America, has placed a personal advertisement in the newspaper......

Country rube thinks what he sees on the movie screen is real. He jumps out of his seat to try to stop a kissing scene....

A combination of the story of Goldlocks and the Three Bears with the true story of how Teddy Roosevelt spared a bear cub after killing its mother while hunting, an event which led to the popularization of the teddy bear. Goldilocks goes to sleep in t...

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...

An engaged couple, dressed in white, meet each other at a train station. When the train arrives, they board, and later they enjoy the sights from their car's platform. They are married by a minister and soon, arrive at their destination....

A poor boy named Tom Canty and Edward, the Prince of Wales exchange identities but events force the pair to experience each other's lives as well....

A gilded saloon, with a fancy bar, forms the background. A nobby bartender with white coat and apron is dispensing drinks to customers. Behind him are polished plate glass mirrors. A comical Irishman enters, sets a huge pail on the bar to be filled, ...

A panorama of Coney Island, taken at night: the camera sweeps across the scene from a vantage point well above the area. It then moves in for closer views of Dreamland and Luna Park....

Our presidential hunter runs across the landscape and falls down in the snow, gets up with his rifle, and gazes upward at a treed animal which isn't in the camera's view. He fires a shot into the tree, then leaps on the ground to grab the fallen prey...