Dr Rick Worland

In April, 1993, staff members of the Southwest Film-Video Archive (SWFVA) at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas were contacted by a private individual in the small east Texas town of Sulphur Springs regarding some old films that had been moldering in a closet for some fifteen years. When the reels of film on original 35mm nitrate stock were acquired, cleaned, and inspected, a rich find dating back to the turn of the century was discovered. Eight reels of varying length contained a total of thirty-three early films predating the Nickelodeon era. Remarkably, the surviving films are substantially intact and relatively free of nitrate decomposition. The collection, which spans 1898 through 1906, includes a number of single-shot actualities, vaudeville acts, and comedies, five multi-shot story films of the 1904-05 period, and seven panoramas taken by Edison cameramen of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Among the group is at least a dozen titles produced by Sigmund Lubin from 1901-1905, including the Philadelphian's previously unknown imitation of Edwin Porter's famous Life Of An American Fireman. The collection includes rediscoveries of several otherwise lost titles including La Clownesse fantome (English title, "The Shadow-Girl"), a Georges Melies trick film from 1902, and a William Selig Co. story film Tracked By Bloodhounds, Or A Lynching In Cripple Creek (1904). In June 1994, SWFVA received a generous grant from the Louis B. Mayer Foundation to restore and preserve the collection on modern safety stock.

The following list describes and identifies the films in the Sulphur Springs discovery with analysis and general commentary. The list reflects the content of the eight reels in the order they were examined.(1)
The first ten titles were contained on a single reel in the following order:

1. The Golf Girls and the Tramp (Edison, 1902). With a set representing a low wall, a tree, and a half-moon in the sky, this one-shot comedy depicts two female golfers frightened by the approach of a Tramp. One woman resourcefully alters her golfing clothes and golf bags to make it appear she is a man wearing pants and a cap. The Tramp enters and confronts one woman before her disguised friend re-emerges from behind the tree. When she does his startled reaction is to turn a flip and fall down. The golfers smile and acknowledge the camera as they exit.

2. The Maniac Barber (American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., 1899). In this enjoyable trick film, after a customer is seated in the chair, the barber seemingly decapitates him with the razor. After shaving the man's head at a sink, the barber replaces it, whereupon the gentleman rises, puts on his hat and cheerfully departs as the barber grins at the camera. The film was shot in 1899, though not copyrighted until 1902 (Niver 199). The inspiration for this film may have come from James Williamson's similar production The Clown Barber (1898).

3. Epopee napoleonienne: Crossing Mt. St. Bernard (Pathé Frères, 1903-04). The film consists of a one-shot tableau of Napoleon's soldiers, horses, and artillery moving through a wintry Alpine scene, rendered on an elaborate set complete with falling snow. Many costumed extras are posed or moving in several planes of the shot before painted backdrops depicting mountains and trees. Napoleon soon appears on horseback, one hand iconically tucked inside his coat. The scene was adapted from Jacques-Louis David's painting "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" (1800).

SWFVA recovered this single scene, originally part of a fifteen tableaux series depicting major episodes in the life of Napoleon, produced in two long segments by Pathé in 1903-04. The film was also duped and sold in the U.S. by Edison (as The Rise and Fall of Napoleon the Great) and Lubin. Pathé and the American producers sold the scenes individually as well. (Abel 93-96). The SWFVA print uses the Lubin sprockets. Lubin's release, called Napoleon Bonaparte was first offered in 1905. The Lubin catalog pictures representative tableaux including this one titled "Passage of the St. Bernard Pass".

4. The Fight on the Bridge for Supremacy (Lubin, 1904). Though the print's extant title reads "Fight On the Bridge Between Russians & Japs", the June, 1904 Lubin catalog and subsequent listings of this topical Russo-Japanese War scene use the former title(2). (Throughout the Lubin films of this discovery, extant titles sometimes vary slightly from those advertised.) This is a one-shot recreation of a battle scene taken in long shot on a real location in which Russian troops hold one end of a wooden bridge against a Japanese infantry charge from the opposite side. The troops clash amidst much gunfire and action, and a fallen soldier is pushed off into the water during the skirmish.

5. Japs Loading and Firing a Gun on Battleship 'Asam' (Edison, 1904?). This is one of several actualities taken on the Japanese warship and offered for sale by Edison in March, 1904. Photographed in medium long shot, four Japanese sailors overseen by an officer operate a heavy gun. The print uses the Edison sprockets and is proceeded by a faint Edison copyright notice. Its placement on this reel immediately following Lubin's The Fight on the Bridge for Supremacy may have reflected the original exhibitor providing two related views of the Russo-Japanese War.

Actually a 9,750-ton armored cruiser, Asama led the Japanese force that defeated two Russian warships in the Battle of Chemulpo Bay (present-day Inchon, South Korea) on February 8, 1904, the war's opening engagement. (Warner 189©94). A month later, both Edison and Biograph were offering a series of war-related actualities, each company including several minimally described Asama subjects, some depicting Japanese sailors operating naval guns(3) Some or all of these films may have been the same views titled differently by the two companies. The SWFVA's restored Asama print is just over 68 ft. long, quite close to this title's advertised length of 70 ft. The Charles Urban Trading Co. sent cameraman Joseph Rosenthal to shoot scenes of the war and he may have taken the Japanese naval actualities offered by the American producers. Other scenes taken by Rosenthal later that fall from the Japanese side of the siege of Port Arthur were presented in the programs of the traveling exhibitor Lyman H. Howe and travel-lecturer Burton Holmes in the 1905-06 season. (Musser and Nelson, 162, 311-12).

6. S.S. 'Coptic' (Edison, 1898). This is a one-shot scene taken from the side of a ship moving in rough seas. In the foreground we see the ship's railing with two life preservers attached; the name "Coptic" is readable on one. Musser's account of the production of the eight Coptic subjects indicates they were taken on a Pacific voyage by Edison cameraman James H. White from February through July, 1898. (Porter 110-12). The print content closely matches the copyrighted Coptic subject of this title described by Niver (282).

8. Gymnastics: (Unidentified). Two male gymnasts perform routines on high parallel bars in an outdoor arena that resembles a period baseball park with a roof over part of the grandstands. In the background, six men seated on chairs before the empty grandstands watch them perform what may have been a vaudeville or circus act. The print of this one-shot film has the Lubin sprocket design.

9. Feeding Fowl on a Country Path. (Unidentified). This one-shot actuality was taken in a clearing on a rural, wooded path. A man carrying a basket, wearing a flat straw hat and black vest over a white shirt walks toward the camera from the far background, feeding a flock of turkeys, chickens, etc. He exits screen left, and the camera holds on the birds eating in the clearing a while longer. The print uses the Lubin sprockets.

10. Trio of Acrobats. (Unidentified). In this one-shot film, three vaudeville acrobats in make-up and ethnic costumes suggesting a Scottish motif perform comic somersaults, head stands, and other tumbling on a makeshift stage. The stage curtain which depicts a river scene droops slightly at the top to reveal a building behind. Their costumes include a dark kilt-like garment, with white shirt, and tall dark socks. Two are in this attire, while one wears a darker garment. The print uses the Lubin sprockets.

11. Inexhaustible Cab (Lubin, 1901). This one-shot comedy was taken on a city street with a white shuttered, two-story building in the background, a fire-plug and police call-box on the corner in mid-ground, and a horse-drawn wagon parked at the curb around the corner. As passersby cross in the street, a cab pulled by two white horses enters from screen-right, and a Clown gets out. In a reversal of the familiar circus trick, the Clown pulls people off the street and stuffs an impossible number into the cab. A woman with an infant is pushed in and the youngster tossed on top. He finally slaps one woman on the behind with a flat board to drive her in. The trick effect is smoothly accomplished through the stop-camera technique discernible by the slight up and down rocking of the carriage on its springs as a result of people entering and exiting between each pause in filming.

Though an embossed Lubin logo heads the print, the February, 1903 Edison catalog also lists a similar film called Inexhaustible Cab with this description:

A cab is driven up to a palatial mansion after being hailed by a gentleman who wishes to have a score of people conveyed to another part of the city. Immediately upon the stopping of the cab a clown jumps out. A satisfactory agreement is effected between the clown and the gentleman... [a woman] who is carrying a child...After caressing it for a short time he tosses it on top of the cab. [He] ...picks up a board.... (emphases added)(6)

While certain elements in the print match the Edison description, many are different: No gentleman hails the cab to begin the action; no group is waiting when it arrives; the location of a busy street corner is not "a palatial mansion", but the "prominent thoroughfare" of the 1902 Lubin catalog account(7) These important differences suggest there were two similar but distinct films with the same title. Unfortunately, the SWFVA print stops shortly before the end, neither showing the Clown's trick disappearance (Lubin description) nor the cab simply driving away (Edison version). A British release of the same title and basic description was produced by George A. Smith in 1899. (Gifford, 00237). Still, the marked discrepancies between the American producers' descriptions lends weight to the possibility of at least one additional variation, whether by Lubin or Edison(8).

12. Two Rubes At The Theater. (Lubin, 1901). The surviving title of this one-shot film reads "2 Rubes In The Theater". In a medium shot, two jovial rubes are seated in a theater with several other people. The rubes laugh and point at off-screen action, using opera glasses and spectacles to enhance their viewing. A young African-American boy of about fifteen, apparently an usher, enters and asks them to remove their hats. They comply and continue enjoying the show. Catalog description links this film explicitly to the "Facial Expression" genre. The film inspired a similar Edison subject, Rubes In The Theater, released later in 1901.

13. The Bold Bank Robbery (Lubin, 1904). A fairly well-known Lubin "feature", this twenty-nine shot story film depicts the planning and execution of a bank robbery, the pursuit of the gang by police in a chase involving streetcars and a train, their capture and final imprisonment. An interesting and sophisticated story film reminiscent of Porter's The Great Train Robbery, the film is notable for a well-developed chase sequence through outdoor locations and varied employment of emblematic close ups at both the beginning and ending. The SWFVA print is complete as described in the 1904 Lubin catalog and includes the original title.

The following films numbered fourteen through twenty-one, all but one short tricks and comedies, were contained on a single reel in the following order:

14. La Clownesse fantome (Star Film's English title, "The Shadow-Girl") (Melies-Star Films, 1902). A lost Georges Melies production, or at least a well-preserved half of one, resurfaced in the Sulphur Springs discovery. Assisted by the costumed "Imp", the Magician makes a Woman materialize, disappear, and transform into a man, using a hoop, a barrel, and stop-camera effects. The long shot frontal view of an artificial painted backdrop with exposed beams evokes a theatrical setting for cinematic illusions Melies could not possibly have accomplished on stage. The restored print contains about half the film's advertised length of 100 ft., which fortuitously retains a logical sense of closure. The Star Films' catalog describes a levitation trick that originally concluded the film. Here, after Melies has turned the man back into the Woman, the three performers bow to the audience, then turn apparently to begin the levitation trick as the print stops. Duped by both Lubin and Edison, this print carries a faint Edison copyright notice at the head. The Wizard sold the film under the title The Magician and the Imp.

15. Un Homme de Tête (Star Film's English title: "The Four Troublesome Heads"). (Melies-Star Films, 1898). Melies repeatedly removes and places his head onto a table, then magically sprouts a new one until three heads of Melies are arranged across two tables. He then pulls up a chair and banjo and leads his three heads in a song, afterwards smashing each with the instrument so they disappear. He bows to the camera and exits upstage. The background is solid black to facilitate the trick effects. Some of the beginning is missing as the print opens with one head already placed on a table. Lubin duped the film in 1903 and advertised it as Four Heads Are Better Than One; the Lubin sprockets are used here.

17. Target Practice, and What Happened to Widow Flaherty (Lubin, 1902). This one-shot comedy taken outdoors finds a man teaching a woman to shoot a rifle at a target while another woman (presumably Widow Flaherty) hangs up laundry nearby. Eventually the laundress is hit in the rear end by a stray shot but gets up enraged and attacks the man, with a dog joining the fray as well. The Widow chases the man away, pitching her washtub after him.

18. A Shocking Accident (Lubin, 1904). At the beginning of this one-shot comedy, a woman and her maid set up a ladder to wash a high porch railing outside the house. An impudent man in a loud checkered suit comes by and flirts with the lady of the house, in the process knocking the maid off the ladder. Like Widow Flaherty before her, the angry maid rises to drench and pummel him. The film was made on an actual location.

19. Le Laveur de Devantures (Pathé's English title, "The Window Cleaner"). (Pathé Frères, 1903). On the set of an urban street a woman in a second story window twice shakes out a rug on a man below. In revenge, he climbs up a ladder and throws her down to the street, where they fight. The film involves a trick effect of the man falling off the ladder, reversed to look as if it rights itself with him still on it. The film was duped by both Edison (as Window Cleaner's Mishap, May, 1903) and Lubin (as The Window Washer in June, 1904). This print uses the Lubin sprockets and is preceded by an embossed Lubin logo. A restored print of the film, though unidentified, was screened at the Domitor conference on early film held at the Museum of Modern Art in June, 1994.

20. The Goose Takes A Trolley Ride (Lubin, 1903). In shot 1 of this three-shot comedy, a young woman boards a streetcar with a man who's carrying a live goose. In shot 2, men already seated inside reading newspapers offer seats to the young woman, while ignoring an older, heavy woman. When the goose nips the older woman's behind, she flails its owner with a bag of flour and the conductor forces the combatants off the car. Shot 3 returns to the exterior view (in a new location) as the unruly passengers and the goose are tossed from the car to the surprise of several people waiting to board.

The print's original title survives as The Goose Takes A Trolley Ride., though the film seems to have been Lubin's somewhat expanded remake of Edison's single-shot Street Car Chivalry, which had been produced by Edwin Porter in late July, 1903. Shot 2 alone conveys the gist of the Edison original. Lubin even followed Edison's example by displaying his company's trademark among the advertising cards placed above the passengers(9).

Lubin's simple expansion of Streetcar Chivalry from one shot to three provides a fascinating illustration of the representational and narrative systems of early cinema. First, the remade film is rich in the syncretism of the period. Shots #1 and #3 are exteriors depicting a real Philadelphia streetcar. Shot #2, as in the Porter original, is a set of the car's interior which, bracketed by the documentary-like shots of real locations produces a sharply contrasting effect to the contemporary eye. Moreover, as in the express car scene of Lubin's remake of The Great Train Robbery, the representation of the streetcar interior employs a painted scenic backdrop outside the windows which revolves to depict the trolley's passage through urban and semi-rural landscapes (10). Narratively, the transitions between exterior and interior spaces employ slight temporal repetitions in the manner of the link between shots two and three of Edison's How They Do Things On the Bowery (1902).
The third shot conveys another joke in which we may not only savor a second view of the comic brawl but the startled reactions of the people waiting for the car at the second exterior location as well. The addition of just two shots makes the development of narrative events through film editing much more complex here than in the single-shot sight gag of the Porter original.

21. Love In A Railroad Train (Lubin, 1902). On an interior set of a railroad coach, this one-shot comedy depicts a Mother holding a toddler (11). When a male passenger tries to steal a kiss as the train goes into a tunnel, it turns out he was kissing the baby's bare bottom. The Mother laughs at her joke on the man as he wipes his mouth in disgust. The film is similar to Edison's What Happened In the Tunnel (1903) (12). The print is titled "Love In A Train".

1906 San Francisco Earthquake Films (Edison, 1906).

Robert K. Bonine, the Edison company's actuality cameraman, took thirteen panoramas of the devastation of the April, 1906 earthquake which were offered for sale later that year. (Musser, Porter 367). The 1906 Edison catalog lists all the films with additional short descriptions and information on specific location, etc. A single reel contained the following seven views, all with the original titles:

22. Panorama Nob Hill and Ruins of Millionaire Residences.

23.Panorama City Hall, Van Ness Ave., and College of St. Ignatius.

24. Panorama Notorious 'Barbary Coast'.

25. Earthquake Ruins New Majestic Theater and City Hall.

26. Vertical Panorama City Hall and Surroundings.

27. Panorama Ruins, Aristocratic Apartments.

28. Ruins of Chinatown.

29. The Farmer's Troubles in a Hotel (Lubin, 1902). Restoration of this comic trick film salvaged 108 ft. of its original 150 ft. length. Some opening action described by the catalog in which the Farmer first enters the hotel lobby was missing. In shot #i, a porter escorts a Farmer with chin whiskers, long coat, and broad-brimmed hat down a corridor to a hotel room. This lap dissolves into shot #ii, a maid preparing the room, which quickly dissolves into shot/scene #iii, in which the Farmer is shown the room, hides his wallet under the pillow, and prepares for bed. When he tries to climb in, the bed flips upside down, rights itself, then jumps back and forth across the room via stop-camera effects. The catalog attributes this to bed bugs which also make him itch. Other large vermin begin crawling up the wall; when he touches one with a candle it explodes. As he tries to sleep on the floor an enormous flying mosquito attacks him. When the Farmer catches it and throws it down, this creature also explodes. Immediately, a large scowling face (resembling a sculpted mask) arises from the smoke and terrifies him. The porter soon returns and throws him out.

30. The Counterfeiters (Lubin, 1905). This sophisticated story film containing at least twenty-seven shots details the investigation of a gang of counterfeiters by U.S. Secret Service agents. In shot 6, the old woman aiding the counterfeiters exits their attic work room then returns with a large box bearing the Lubin trademark, the word "copyrighted" prominent below it - a brazen joke from a notorious counterfeiter of competitors' wares? The film's second half consists of a jailbreak and chase after one of the crooks clad in convict stripes. The jailbreak scene contains an inserted medium close up of the prisoner using a smuggled saw to cut through the cell door.

Though the original title is extant, nitrate decomposition at the tail of the print necessitated a trim. Our version stops just before the escaping crook is recaptured, though the catalog pictures two more scenes: i) the chase continues in rowboats; ii) the fleeing counterfeiter is seized and clubbed by the cops on a city street. The print did include a few salvageable frames of the last scene.

31. The Great Train Robbery (Lubin, 1904). The Lubin remake of the famous 1903 Porter/Edison film is nearly a shot-by-shot imitation. Lubin's version was copyrighted in June, 1904. (Niver 126). The film contains eighteen shots including a duplication of the emblematic close up of the outlaw firing his pistol at the camera. The set of the railroad depot interior was later reused for The Bold Bank Robbery. The print is complete with the original title extant.

32. Tracked By Bloodhounds, Or A Lynching in Cripple Creek (Selig, 1904). William Selig prominently advertised this film as a "headliner" in the trade press from mid-1904 through 1905 as multi-shot story films became more important in the industry. This violent twelve-scene film depicts a Tramp's murder of a woman who gives him food, and his pursuit and capture by a posse after a long chase. Apprehended in a stream after leaping from a bridge, the Tramp is hanged from a tall, bare tree by the enraged posse; as the body dangles in the air, one man raises a rifle to deliver the coup de grace. According to catalog descriptions there was a final shot our copy lacks: an emblematic close up of a posse member with the hounds that tracked the murderer. The print includes the original title; Selig's ownership is asserted three times with a sign bearing his logo, a diamond enclosing the initials "W.N.S." that appears in the woods and fields through which the fugitive is pursued. The final lynching scene, notably, was printed on blue-tinted stock, the period convention to indicate a sequence taking place at night.

33. Life Of An American Fireman (Lubin, 1905). Perhaps the most intriguing film of the Sulphur Springs discovery is Lubin's imitation of the famous Porter/Edison Life Of An American Fireman. The title, along with a two-column description first appeared in the Lubin catalog issued in May, 1905 (13). Lubin's trademark is prominently displayed in two scenes: First, on the wall of the Fire Chief's office just above the telephone (see frame enlargement), and later, on the wall of the set depicting the interior of the burning bedroom where the mother and child are rescued. The print lacked the original title but is complete with the ten shots/scenes the Lubin catalog indicates. (The LoC Paper Prints version of Porter's film contains nine scenes.) Comparing the print with Lubin catalog descriptions suggests the film is an economically produced hybrid. It seems to include staged fire-run and rescue scenes originally made for an earlier fire film interspersed with four new scenes shot to mimic Porter's American Fireman.

Lubin's four fictional interior scenes closely imitate scenes from Porter's version: two separate shots in the Chief's office, the second of which includes the dream balloon sequence; a scene of the sleeping firemen rising and sliding down the pole; and the rescue in the interior of the burning bedroom. The source of some or all of the staged actuality material may be an earlier Lubin film called Going to the Fire and the Rescue (c.1901). According to the 1902 Lubin catalog, in addition to the fire-run, exterior views in that film depicted the rescue of several women and children (some are boys), and it concluded with a scene back at the firehouse as the horses are unhitched and led away while other firemen push the apparatus back into the building (14). All these elements are present in Lubin's Life Of An American Fireman, aspects without analogs in the Edison precursor. As is often the case, however, catalog descriptions of scenes and actions within the films themselves cannot be wholly trusted. The Lubin remake does not contain a view of the fire alarm box being pulled nor a scene in the firehouse interior showing horses being hitched to the wagons, though such scenes are claimed by the Lubin catalog in phrases echoing Edison descriptions of the Porter original (15).

Dating the film precisely is difficult. Though it did not appear in a Lubin catalog until May, 1905, it cannot be immediately assumed the film was produced in say, the first quarter of that year. Complicating things as well is a listing for Life Of An American Fireman appearing in a Lubin advertisement in The New York Clipper on January 30, 1904. A release one year after the debut of the Edison film (January 31, 1903) would initially seem a more timely opportunity for a Lubin remake of the title than spring, 1905. However, other factors mitigate against the earlier date. The title is buried in a list with thirty-six other diverse films under the heading "Bargain Films", described by the ad as "slightly used" prints offered at the cut-rate price of eight cents/ft., as against Lubin's prevailing rate of eleven cents/ft(16).

Given Lubin's reputation as an illegal duper it's likely that the film offered as Life Of An American Fireman in that January, 1904 ad was a simple dupe of the Porter original. The "Bargain Films" ad lists other pirated prints of a couple of years back including several Melies and American Vitagraph titles. (It also includes two- to three-year old Lubin productions such as Target Practice and his own 700 ft. version of Uncle Tom's Cabin.) Moreover, the "Bargain" ad gives the length of Life Of An American Fireman as 425 feet, exactly that of the Edison print (17). The May, 1905 catalog announcement of Lubin's American Fireman, notably, gives its length at 420 feet with a price of $46.20 or eleven cents/ft., Lubin's regular rate from mid-1902 through 1906. Given that films were sold strictly by the foot that five feet discrepancy may be significant. Then too, the context of the "Bargain Films" ad inclines against it referring to a new, never-before-offered Lubin production. Reliable dating of the production and release of Lubin's American Fireman as either during or before spring, 1905 awaits further research.

The recovery of the thirty-three early films in relatively fine condition is all the more remarkable in comparison to that of two features from the 1910s also found in this collection whose condition reflects more common archival rediscoveries.

Bettina Loved A Soldier, a war-time melodrama directed by Rupert Julian (The Phantom of the Opera) at Universal in 1916, suffered from pervasive nitrate decomposition throughout the print so that only an estimated seventy-five percent of the film survives. The second recovered feature, Heart of A Hero (1916) was produced by The World Film Corporation. While the print is in decent condition, SWFVA recovered Part II only (about 750 ft.) of this American Revolutionary War drama directed by Emile Chautard that features Robert Warwick as Nathan Hale.

What's particularly striking about the early films of this discovery is the overall quality of the prints. Brittle and broken sprockets and some shrinkage encompassed the extent of the damage to most films rather than major base/emulsion separation or other image degradation. (Only one film in the collection was totally unsalvageable.) Certain titles, especially the seven San Francisco earthquake films were in particularly good condition. Happily, the films themselves have considerable intrinsic interest beyond their age and state of preservation. In addition to the rediscovery of a number of lost titles, the Sulphur Springs, Texas Early Films collection offers a cross-section of important producers, genres, techniques, and styles of early film that will soon be available at the Southwest Film-Video Archives for examination and study by film scholars and audiences in the future.

Frazer, John. Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Melies. Boston: G.K. Hall & Company, 1979.

Gifford, Denis. The British Film Catalogue, 1895-1985: A Reference Guide. London: Newton and Abbot; David & Charles, 1986.

Musser, Charles. Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and The Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

---. The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen To 1907. 1990. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

---, et al. Motion Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors, 1894-1908 microform: A Microfilm Edition. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984-85.

--- and Carol Nelson. High-Class Moving Pictures: Lyman H. Howe and the Forgotten Era of Traveling Exhibition, 1880-1920. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Niver, Kemp R. Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress.. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985.

Warner, Denis and Peggy Warner. The Tide At Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05. New York: Charterhouse, 1974.

Notes:
(1) Some information for identifying the films was provided by The American Film Institute, Washington, D.C. Lubin scholar Joseph Eckhardt of Philadelphia kindly shared his insights on Lubin's production and supplied valuable information and samples for distinguishing the unique Lubin and Edison sprocket hole designs.

(2) Lubin's Films, June, 1904, 25.

(3) New York Clipper, March 12, 1904, 48-49.

(4) Edison Circular Letter no. 2, Orange New Jersey, April 20, 1904. Edison's March 12, 1904 ad in The New York Clipper cited above, p. 49, offered a film titled Japs Loading and Firing Gun Onboard Man-o-war at a length of 100 ft. Both the Edison Circular Letter no. 2 and AMB's Clipper ad of March 12, 1904 specifically identify Asama as the location for several actualities.

(5) Buster Keaton remarked in his autobiography that vaudeville house curtains commonly contained "...local ads and invariably a painting of a waterfall, a lake, or a river", a fact which his father incorporated into the climax of their act around 1904. Buster Keaton, My Wonderful World of Slapstick (1960. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1982) 27-28.

(6) Edison Films, February, 1903, Supplement 24, 9-10.

(7) Catalog No. 3, New Films Made by S. Lubin, 1902, 3.

(8) The differences in lengths of the title Inexhaustible Cab stated in the catalogs of George A. Smith, Edison, and Lubin (seventy-five, ninety-five, and ninety feet, respectively) offers the possibility of three similar but otherwise distinct versions. Our restored print measures 85 ft. though discrepancies in Lubin catalogs regarding the original length of the title add to the mystery. Inexhaustible Cab was listed at 130 ft. in one Lubin catalog (Catalogue No. 3, New Films made by S. Lubin, 1902, 3) and 90 ft. in the next (Lubin's Films, January, 1903, 17). However, the descriptive text accompanying the two listings is identical. While some footage is missing on the end, the evidence from the content of this rediscovered print in comparison to the accuracy of its catalog description inclines toward the shorter length being the correct one.

(9) Lubin's New York Clipper ad for November 14, 1903 offered a film titled Streetcar Chivalry. (Musser, Porter, 524 n42.) In the following week's ad, however, The Goose Takes A Trolley Ride was announced. (New York Clipper, November 21, 1903, 944.) Lubin did not catalog the title Streetcar Chivalry but The Goose Takes A Trolley Ride first appeared in Lubin's Films, June, 1904, p. 13. It's unclear whether Lubin actually made two separate films or a single variation of Edison's Streetcar Chivalry, and then changed the title after the film's initial offering. If the latter, it's worth noting that this would have come in the aftermath of Lubin's defeat in his suit contesting Edison's method of copyrighting films (April 21, 1903). A single-shot Lubin imitation of Streetcar Chivalry might also have been expanded by the addition of the framing exterior shots of the real streetcar, and the new version retitled. A few months afterwards, Lubin in fact did just this with Meet Me At the Fountain (1904) his imitation of Biograph's Personal, action indeed motivated by questions of copyright infringement. (Musser, Emergence, 394).

(10) See Musser, Emergence, 429 for discussion of this technique's integration into motion pictures as a carryover from nineteenth century amusements, and its early cinematic adaptation to the railway travel genre including the mock rail journeys of Hale's Tours in 1905.

(11) In the four original Lubin comedies on this reel, the roles of the bulky women who become the butt of the jokes appear to be played in each case by a heavy-set man in drag, possibly the same actor. Think of Henry Bergman's drag roles for Chaplin in The Immigrant or The Rink for comparison.

(12) See Musser, Porter, 260-63 for discussion of the Edison and Lubin variants. Like Porter, Lubin used a photographic matte here to depict the countryside moving past the window of the car. The film's placement on the reel following The Goose Takes A Trolley Ride provides a vivid example of the flexible conception of "realism" acceptable in early cinema where one could observe an obviously artificial scenic backdrop suggesting landscape passing outside a railway vehicle in one film followed by the more consistent photographic realism of a matte process used in the next.

(13) Lubin's Films, May, 1905, 27-28.

(14) Catalog No. 3, New Films made by S. Lubin, 1902, 8. The ad is also reprinted in Musser, Porter, 218.

(15) See Musser, Porter, 214-18 for reprints of the original Edison ad in The New York Clipper and the 1903 Edison catalog listing of Life Of An American Fireman.

(16) New York Clipper, January 30, 1904, 1184.

(17) Porter, 215. Edison initially offered Porter's Life of An American Fireman at $63.75 so a Lubin dupe at eight cents/ft. ($34.00) would have been a bargain indeed at nearly half-price.