A Corner in Wheat

A Corner in Wheat 1909

6.20

On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.

1909

The Lonely Villa

The Lonely Villa 1909

6.02

A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home.

1909

Those Awful Hats

Those Awful Hats 1909

6.10

A pair of young ladies cause trouble at the cinema with their lavish hats.

1909

The Diabolic Tenant

The Diabolic Tenant 1909

6.80

A man rents an apartment and furnishes it in remarkable fashion.

1909

The Renunciation

The Renunciation 1909

4.38

Two miners are fighting over a woman, and one is about to murder the other in his sleep. At the critical moment, the woman introduces her fiancé from the city.

1909

Le Voleur invisible

Le Voleur invisible 1909

6.40

A man in a suit and cap stops in front of the display of a bookseller, finds and flips… "Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells! Fascinated by the subject, he buys the book and goes home with the intention to test the invisibility formula described by the author…

1909

Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy

Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy 1909

5.81

A smoker falls asleep, and two mischievious fairies play with his pipe. He discovers this, and imprisons them in a cigar box. He removes a flower from the box, which contains a fairy smoking a cigarette. Next, he leaves briefly while his smoking paraphenalia clears itself from the table and the flower reassembles itself into a cigar. He lights the cigar, then breaks a bottle containing the fairy, who interacts with him in various ways reeling from his cigar smoke, building a bonfire that he extinguishes, etc.

1909

The Country Doctor

The Country Doctor 1909

6.17

While caring for his sick daughter, a doctor is called away to the sickbed of a neighbor. He finds the neighbor gravely ill, and ignores his wife's pleas to come home and care for his own daughter, who has taken a turn for the worse.

1909

Whimsical Illusions

Whimsical Illusions 1909

6.10

In this hand-colored short, a magician and his assistant do a series of magic tricks, including making potted plants appear, among others. Melies played the magician, and the actor Manuel played his assistant.

1909

The Voice of the Violin

The Voice of the Violin 1909

4.71

A music teacher is in love with Helen, one of his students, but she rejects him. In his hurt he joins an anarchist group who plan to blow up a rich capitalist's house. When he realizes it's Helen's house, he tries to stop the plan.

1909

The Life of Moses

The Life of Moses 1909

1.00

Released in five parts (The Persecution of the Children of Israel by the Egyptians, Forty Years in the Land of Midian, The Plagues of Egypt and the Deliverance of the Hebrews, The Victory of Israel, The Promised Land), 4 December 1909 to 19 February 1910. A Vitagraph advertisement in the Moving Picture World (31 Dec. 1909) refers to The Life of Moses as a "Biblical Film-de-Luxe". It is preserved in the Library of Congress collection.

1909

In the Sultan's Power

In the Sultan's Power 1909

3.00

Jack Thornton, an American traveler, while touring Europe meets the daughter of an old French nobleman and falls in love with her. He is persistent in his suit for her hand, but outside of a seemingly cordial friendship the lady apparently does not return his affections. There is a reason for this. Osman Bey, a Turkish nobleman, desires the hand of this charming girl.

1909

Love's Surprises

Love's Surprises 1909

5.00

A man, his wife and their two sons are having a meal. One of the sons leaves the room pretending to be ill and collects a bunch of flowers form a cupboard and goes out. The other son takes a bunch of flowers from under his bed and he too leaves, followed by their father, also carrying flowers. The two sons and their father call on the same young women one after the other; as each arrives, the previous suitor is hidden in a piece of furniture: the father under a chair cover, one son in a cupboard and the other in a piano. A girlfriend of the young woman visits and the two play pranks on the hiding men by playing the piano and sitting on the chair cover. The three men emerge and the father chases his two sons outside until they remind him of his own folly; he gives his sons some money and urges them to keep silent.

1909

Her First Biscuits

Her First Biscuits 1909

3.00

A new bride has made a batch of biscuits. Her husband pretends to like them, so she delivers the rest to his office. But one bite of these biscuits makes you violently ill, and soon all his visitors (he runs a theatrical booking agency), plus the workmen at home, are ill; when she shows up at the office, they all go after her.

1909

The Sealed Room

The Sealed Room 1909

5.04

The Count sets out to make a private room for him and his Countess, built in such a way no one can see, hear, and most importantly, disturb them. But unbeknownst to the Count, his wife has set her eyes on the court minstrel. Based on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado” and Honoré de Balzac's “La Grande Breteche”.

1909

Twin Brothers

Twin Brothers 1909

5.00

Two boys, twins, leave the old homestead to seek their fortune in the world. They go divergent roads, and are soon widely separated one from the other, but they grow lonesome and try to find each other's whereabouts, without success. We lose sight of Bill and Dick is seen up against it good and hard. For him the future looks like a chalk ring on a blackboard, until he happens to saunter along the Bowery, where the manager of a dime museum offers him a job to play the gorilla. It looks good so he accepts. It is pretty sort until the astute impresario decides to pull off an innovation: that is, a gorilla and lion in the same cage. Of course Dick objects most strenuously to this arrangement, but his objections are quailed with a treacherous looking run, so he is forced to share the same menagerie hallroom with the lion.

1909

Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim 1909

3.00

Gertrude chooses Jim over Jack, which makes Jack very jealous. Later Jim dies, and Jack marries Gertrude. He finds himself once again very jealous of the late Lucky Jim.

1909

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe 1909

5.10

As Poe's lover is slowly dying, he struggles to make money to care for her.

1909

The Doctor's Secret

The Doctor's Secret 1909

5.20

Doctors blow to pieces a patient in a hydrotherapy machine and re-assemble him.

1909