Société Française des Films Éclair

The story of the children of Captain Grant.

The cub journalist comes to the aid of a recently remarried woman, whose late criminal husband turns out to be still alive.

Émile Durand, an insecticide manufacturer, is appalled to learn that his son Gérard has fallen in love with Suzy, the daughter of a travelling theatre company. Realising his father will never favour the union, Gérard joins the company on their next tour. In an attempt to heal the rift, Durand’s wife goes after Gérard and ends up performing in their next play…

Drama in which the love between Claude and Germaine is tested when Claude is falsely accused and Germaine's father doesn't approve of their relationship.

The film based on the novel of the same name by Alexandre Duma, is concerned with fraternal royal strife at the court of Henri III. Tragically caught between the millstones of history are the gallant Count de Bussy and the woman he adores, la Dame de Monsoreau.

Protéa is the last film directed by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, one of the early film pioneers in France. The hero of this film is a female spy, an acrobatic Mata-Hari, played by his favorite actress, Josette Andriot, who wore a characteristic costume of a close-fitting black jersey, two years before Musidora achieved cult status with her similar appearance as Irma Vep. This final masterpiece reflects Jasset's popular style: rhythmic action, fantastic realism, rich visuals, an anarchistic philosophy, a disdain for psychology, and an attention to lighting that earned him the nickname “the Rembrandt of the cinema". Although Jasset died shortly after completion, the film had considerable success and Andriot went on to make four more films in the series with other directors.

A mother loses first her son and then her husband in the trenches of France during the First World War. She devotes herself to the French cause and to helping those wounded in the war.

Over-stimulated by boxing lessons, Gavroche brings a lion home to spar with, triggering an all-out assault on public order.

A visitor to an insane asylum realises that the inmates have taken control.

Silent Short

A Nick Carter serial

Eugenie Grandet has discovered where her father, a miserable old miser, keeps his treasure. Eugenie's cousin, Charles, is the bearer of a letter from his father to his uncle, Eugenie's father. The letter informs the miser that Charles' father, his only brother, is reduced to a state of utter ruin, and unless he can obtain immediate help, he contemplates suicide.

Gavroche lives by his wit, so when he reads an ad, which tells that a rich American girl will marry the man who can cause her to experience the greatest thrill or sensation, he puts his mental ingenuity working, and he conceives a plan to win. He calls at her address and sees two suitors try and fail. He then goes to a menagerie, where he buys two lions. With these he returns and enters the office where the contract is to be signed if he should prove the victor. All flee before Gavroche and his lions, all but the heiress, who flies into his arms begging protection. Thus it is that he caused her the greatest emotion or thrill and she gladly names him victor and husband-to-be.

A work-obsessed inventor uses a video-telephone to spy on his girlfriend, who in turn uses film to teach him a lesson. (MoMA)

Funnicus is hunting, while at his home many of his friends await his return very impatiently. Suddenly he makes his appearance, his game-bag full, of newspapers. He tells his friends that he actually disdains small game, and to illustrate the story of his wondrous adventures, turns the house topsy-turvy. His wife, alarmed, advises him to go to bed and calm his excited brain. Nightmares disturb his sleep. He finds himself in Africa, traveling on camel, accompanied by many guides. He arrives at an Arab's camp and jests with the Arabian maidens who, for revenge, put out his fires in the forest the following night. The fires out, the wild beasts arrive, and he just has time to climb a tree where he is out of reach of two big lions, who wait for him at the foot of the tree. Our great Hunter courageously risks his life by descending from the tree. He tries to strangle the lion, but suddenly awakens and finds himself clutching at his wife's throat.

Paulin Broquet, the great Parisian detective, has brought the notorious bandit, Zigomar, to justice. Determined not to let the law punish him, he had taken poison in the Hall of Justice. Then he was brought to a hospital where he lay motionless and was visited by hundreds of persons. Among the visitors was a slender woman, dressed in black, who secreted herself in the hospital, and, when all the others had gone, went to the bedside of Zigomar and administered an antidote for poisoning.

The Twins, regular bad men of the regiment, have been condemned to the military prison, and it goes much against the grain of the kind-hearted Captain Hurluret to see these poor fellows confined to their cells. His leniency toward them, however, is speedily taken advantage of with most amusing results.

In 1912 Jasset turned from fantasy and spectacle to realism in making the first of two Zola adaptations, as part of Éclair's new series of social dramas. For Au pays des ténèbres, based on Germinal, he took his crew to Charleroi in Belgium to film in authentic locations, and although he updated the story to the present, he went to great lengths to recreate in the studio the detail of the actual mining galleries, exploiting the ability of film to be a recorder of contemporary reality.

"The Amblystoma: Curious Salamander From Mexico". Vintage French educational film from 1913 describing the Axolotl. Very impressive footage for the time.