Anno 1900

A divinely inspired peasant woman becomes an army captain for France and then is martyred after she is captured.

A band-leader has arranged seven chairs for the members of his band. When he sits down in the first chair, a cymbal player appears in the same chair, then rises and sits in the next chair. As the cymbal player sits down, a drummer appears in the second chair, and then likewise moves on to the third chair. In this way, an entire band is soon formed, and is then ready to perform.

A child borrows his grandmother's magnifying glass to look at a newspaper ad for Bovril, at a watch, and then at a bird. The child shows grandma what he is doing. The child looks next at grandma's eye, then at a kitten.

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

A man takes off his clothes in preparation for bed, only for new clothes to spontaneously generate, leading to comical consternation.

An early trick film where a car explodes and body parts fall from the sky. A policeman witnesses and attempts to piece the remains back together.

The entire story of Christmastide is here depicted. The scene opens in a large boudoir of an apparently wealthy man's home. His children, assisted by their governess, are about to retire. Before lying down they hang up their stockings on the edge of the bed. The picture changes and night appears. We see the housetops of the town and angels are flying about depositing packages in each of the chimneys. (Edison Catalog)

A series of fantastical wrestling matches.

George Mélies made a version of this a few years later, often titled Une Indigestion, but Guy-Blaché’s earlier film Chirurgie Fin de Siecle (1900) is more widely available. And it’s not one to watch the night before an operation. In this clinic, a sign pleads “On est prie de ne pas crier/Please do not cry”, and the doctors set about the patient with saws, cheerily hacking off limbs, and then slopping them into a bucket, all the while arguing ferociously with each other. They then reattach arms and legs from a bucket of “exchange pieces” (using glue) before re-animating their victim, I mean patient, with bellows. (from http://silentlondon.co.uk/2015/01/23/10-disgusting-moments-in-silent-cinema/)

A monkey wreaks havoc on a doctor.

A conjurer (along with two duplicates) conjure up (and then cause to vanish) a beautiful woman head-first.

Possibly the first film to utilize the technique of focus pulling. A man kisses a beautiful and lively woman, then the image blurs and dissolves into a clear image of the man waking up to his nagging wife.

Sherlock Holmes enters his drawing room to find it being burgled, but on confronting the villain is surprised when the latter disappears.

The film is a panorama shot-scene lasting just under a minute. The panorama film, as coined by Lumière, is a moving-camera shot--usually accomplished by placing the camera on a moving transport, such as a boat or train.

Marguerite is seated in front of the fireplace, Faust standing by her side. Mephistopheles enters and offers his sword to Faust, commanding him to behead the fair Marguerite. Faust refuses, whereupon Mephistopheles draws the sword across the throat of the lady and she suddenly disappears and Faust is seated in her place.

As the camera looks down an open road, a horse and carriage approaches, and passes by to one side of the field of view. Soon afterwards, an automobile comes up the road, straight towards the camera. As it gets nearer, the occupants start to wave frantically, but can a collision be avoided?

A landlady is taunted by neighborhood kids.

A turn-of-the-last-century hand-tinted short, which features two women, Miss Lally and Miss Julyett, dancing at a ball. By the legendary French filmmaker Alice Guy.

A machine churns out sausages on one side and spits out hats on the other.

The fairy at a cabbage patch hovers over the babies. This is a remake of Guy's 1896 film on the same subject, this time shot in 35 mm.