
Devilish looking man dances with a dress in his arms. The dress stands up by itself and a woman magician appears in it. She conjures six women and then makes them disappear. She magically changes into men's clothing and lines up six boxes which begin to smoke and produce six women, whose clothing transforms from formal gowns to ballet dresses. The magician makes them disappear. She then lines up six glasses on a table, and, as she pours wine into them, a woman appears in each glass. She makes the wine go back into the container and everything on the table goes up in smoke. She transforms her clothing into a dress, then disappears, leaving the dress standing on its own. The devilish man reappears, turns the dress into torches, then disappears into smoke with the torches. (Library of Congress)
6.3A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night's sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room--beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.
5.9A devil wearing bat-like wings and brandishing a trident dances around a giant pot, conjuring forth flame from his trident to lit a fire beneath the pot. After the devil works the fire with bellows, an angelic woman emerges from the pot. The devil and the pot vanish as the woman performs a dance, waving about her diaphanous sleeves until she conjures forth another fire, then she rises amongst the smoke into the air.
6.0Georges Méliès' adaptation of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is most distinguished, today, for being a color film of the classic story. Color was rare in 1902 (and many years after) as non-tinted color has to be hand painted on the film; this was an arduous task. Also notable is the film's short running time of approximately five minutes. Much of the original work is not covered, but viewers were expected to be familiar with the story, and enjoy the filmed highlights. There are a couple of scenes missing; according to contemporary reports, Gulliver's shipwreck was certainly included. You can do a lot in a few minutes, as Mr. Méliès includes a re-make of his own "Une partie de cartes" (1896), which already looked like something previously covered by the Lumière Brothers.
6.2A penniless troubadour consults witch Carabosse about his future, but offends her by paying with a bag of sand. He evades the witch's revenge, and saves the beautiful princess.
6.4Lord Shiva wakes. A convocation of magicians in the guise of figures from mythology; a masquerade party at which Pan is the prize. The wine of Hecate is poured: Pan's cup is poisoned by Shiva. Kali blesses the assembly as a bacchic rite ensues.
7.2Mal emerges from the shadows of a mystical forest onto a dark coastline where she crosses paths with Dizzy.
6.2The background of this picture represents a scene along the beautiful river Seine in Paris. A gentleman enters, and taking a blackboard from the side of the picture, he draws on it a sketch of a novelist. Then, standing in the centre, he causes the living features of his sketch to appear in the place of his own, which is utterly devoid of whiskers. The change is made so mysteriously that the eye cannot notice it until one sees quite another person in the place of the first. Again another sketch is shown on the board, this one being that of a miser; then an English cockney; a comic character; a French policeman, and last of all, the grinning visage of Mephistopheles. It is almost impossible to give this film a more definite description; suffice it to say that it is something entirely new in motion pictures and is sure to please. (Méliès Catalog)
7.1After an affair with a queen leads to his demise, an eager traveler encounters a mystical bird with the power to give him another life.
6.5Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.
6.2The elder one of each generation in the Furlong family is equipped with an extraordinary capacity. James discovers the nature of his at the time of an accident which causes the death of his father and his grandmother. Haunted by this mysterious evil he hides in a forest not to harm anybody. A few years later, Mae also takes refuge it in the forest and meets James.
6.2A Japanese fairy tale meets commedia dell'Arte. All in white, the naïf Pierrot lies in a wood. Doo-wop music plays as he rises, stares about, and reaches for the moon. Although music abounds and the children of the wood are there at play, Pierrot is melancholy and alone. Harlequin appears, brimming with confidence and energy. He conjures the lovely Colombina. Pierrot is dazzled. But can the course of true love run smooth?
6.4In a medieval castle, a dark magician thought to be Mephistopheles conjures up a series of bizarre creatures and events in order to torment a pair of interloping cavaliers.
6.1A wall full of advertising posters comes to life.
6.5A pimple-faced 13-year-old tomboy starts morphing in bizarre ways after catching stomach flu.
5.9A woman named Kit moves back to her parent's house, where she receives a mysterious invitation that would fulfill her childhood dreams.
6.8Upon waking from the dream of a theater peopled entirely by numerous Buster Keatons, a lowly stage hand causes havoc everywhere he works.
7.0Following the death of their miller father, his eldest son inherits the mill, the middle one a donkey, and the youngest a cat. While initially disappointed, the lad soon learns not only that the cat can talk but is quite resourceful.
7.3A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.
6.1A college athlete returns from the dead to help his brother's basketball team win the NCAA title.
5.0This is a poetic film set in the times of Lenin's NEP. A ballet dancer steals a brooch and gives it as a present to another dancer. This is a crime of passion. A mysterious black ball is after the heroine. She runs away from it and manages to give the brooch in an exquisite pirouette movement, as shiny as diamond facets. What gives a stone its dazzling luster are its polished facets. But the real gem is love, and it's much harder to get than any diamond in the world.
7.7The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.
6.1Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster.
7.2Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.
6.4The navy captain Avanti Planetaros is inspired by his astronomer-father to travel through outer space to reach other worlds. He becomes an aviator and, along with the young scientist Dr. Krafft, the driving force behind the construction of a space-ship. Despite oppostion from the mocking Professor Dubius, Planetaros gathers a crew of fearless men and takes off. During the long voyage, the crew becomes restless; a mutiny is narrowly avoided. Finally, they reach Mars and discover that the planet is inhabited by people who have reached a higher stage of development, free of diseases, sorrow, violence, sexual urges, and the fear of death. Avanti falls in love with Marya, daughter of the Prince of Wisdom, the head of the Martians. Marya shares his feelings and decides to return with him in order to bring the wisdom of the Martians to the backward Earthlings. (stumfilm.dk)
6.2Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his "mad doctor" roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions -- least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the "heroine" and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor.
7.0In 16th-century Prague, a rabbi creates the Golem - a giant creature made of clay. Using sorcery, he brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.
5.9A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.
6.3The Tenant continuously fails to escape his deadly apartment within a 5 minute time limit as his blood-thirsty neighbor threatens him from behind the front door.
6.7This mostly lost film is often confused with director Paul Wegener third and readily available interpretation of the legend; Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920). In this version of the golem legend, the golem, a clay statue brought to life by Rabbi Loew in 16th century Prague to save the Jews from the ongoing brutal persecution by the city's rulers, is found in the rubble of an old synagogue in the 20th century. Brought to life by an antique dealer, the golem is used as a menial servant. Eventually falling in love with the dealer's wife, it goes on a murderous rampage when its love for her goes unanswered.
6.5The Goddess Venus is jealous of the beautiful human girl Psyche and blames her pet unicorn, Unico, as Psyche's source of good luck that keeps her from the harm of the goddess' cruel intentions. Unico has the amazing power to make anyone he meets happy. Whether it's because of his personality or the powers of his horn, no one knows. Venus has Unico banished, and the West Wind now takes Unico from one place and time to the next. Taken to a heavily polluted city, Unico meets a sickly girl named Chiko who is suffering because of the pollution of a nearby factory that darkens the entire sky. Unico then is determined to cheer her up, cure her, and destroy the nearby factory.
7.5An animated short based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale about a poor young girl with a burning desire to find comfort and happiness in her life. Desperate to keep warm, the girl lights the matches she sells, and envisions a very different life for herself in the fiery flames filled with images of loving relatives, bountiful food, and a place to call home.
6.5The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
6.8A homeless bum, bored of eating the same food every night, promises his girlfriend a special dinner. He plans to take her out with money robbed from a passing stranger. But the bum’s in for a surprise when the man he targets for his mugging turns out to have special – and hilarious – powers.
6.1A young woman, Margaret Dauncey, is caught between the forces of a charlatan magician, Oliver Haddo, whom she is unable to resist, and the love of a handsome surgeon, Arthur Burdon, who has saved her from being a helpless cripple by performing a delicate operation on her spine.
7.7With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-effect time sequence.
6.8Jackie is a boy who is so trapped by his fears and doubts that he could not communicate with anyone. Then, a magic dragon named Puff comes to help Jackie by taking his soul force on a wonderous voyage to his island of Honah Lee. Along the way, they have adventures that nurture Jackie's imagination and courage in unorthodox ways.
7.5Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.