Edison Studios

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.

Frankenstein, 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.

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a dummy. The axe comes down and severs the head of the dummy from the body. The executioner picks up the head and shows it around for everyone else to see. One of the first camera tricks to be used in a movie.

Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around. Notable for being the first film in which a scene is being acted out.

Edison short about a happy couple about to be married, but the guy's carelessness at their workplace leads to tragedy.

Two gamecocks fight in the Edison Company film studio. This feature was remade later in the same year, with additional detail added.

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Experimental film made to test the original cylinder format of the Kinetoscope and believed to be the first film shot in the United States. It shows a blurry figure in white standing in one place making large gestures and is only a few seconds long.

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time.

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.

The pursuit of Hop Lee by an irate policeman.

A cartoonist defies reality when he draws objects that become three-dimensional after he lifts them off his sketch pad.

Long before Hollywood started painting white men red and dressing them as 'Injuns' Edison's company was using the genuine article! Featuring for what is believed to be the Native Americans first appearance before a motion picture camera 'Buffalo Dance' features genuine members of the Sioux Tribe dressed in full war paint and costume! The dancers are believed to be veteran members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Filmed again at the Black Maria studios by both Dickson and Heise the 'Buffalo Dance' warriors were named as Hair Coat, Parts His Hair and Last Horse. Its quite strange seeing these movies at first they all stand around waiting to begin and as they start some of the dancers look at the camera in an almost sad way at having lost their way of life.

"This scene shows almost the entire Fire Department led by the Chief, responding to an alarm. The horses, said to be the finest of their kind in the country, present a thrilling spectacle as they dash rapidly by, flecked with foam, and panting from the exertion of their long gallop"--Maguire & Baucus catalogue. 50 ft. strip, filmed November 14, 1896, in Newark, New Jersey.

William K.L. Dickson plays the violin while two men dance. This is the oldest surviving sound film where sound is recorded on the phonograph.

Viola Dana stars as the child of a widower who marries again, much to her dismay. Despite all attempts by the adults, the child refuses to accept her new step-mother

Donald and Eleanor are in love, so that Jim realizes it is up to him to pick a peach for himself. There is only one room left at their country boarding house and Jim wants to make sure that no one but the proper peach rents it. In order to keep the proprietress busy while he interviews the applicants for the room, Jim gives her the animated picture book to look at.

William K.L. Dickson brings his hat from his one hand to the other and moves his head slightly, as a small nod toward the audience. This was the first film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company to be shown to public audiences and the press.

"A glove contest between trained cats. A very comical and amusing subject, and is sure to create a great laugh." (by Edison Films)