Sal 1904

Using 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.

A magician conjures up a mermaid while fishing.

The 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)

A cook has his hands full with three mischievous devils, who pop in and out of his kitchen.

As a conjurer awaits an audience, a procession announces the arrival of a royal representative, carried in a sedan chair, to see him. The conjurer then has a large box brought in. It is opened, revealing a very large folding fan. When the fan is spread out, the designs on it begin to change and move. And this is far from the last of the surprises that the conjurer has in store.

An inquisitor and two of his henchmen burn a woman at the stake. An angel intervenes.

Documentary on the process of hay-making, from the cutting of the grass to the stacking of the hay.

This shows a prince entering upon the stage of the King's private theatre. He is about to do a few mystifying tricks for the amusement of the court.

A French aristocrat, who has recently arrived in America, has placed a personal advertisement in the newspaper...

A Chinese conjurer stands next to a table, it becomes two tables. A fan becomes a parasol, lanterns appear and disappear. The conjurer spins the open parasol in front of himself, and a dog leaps out from behind it. The dog becomes a woman, then a masked man appears. The conjurer sits them each on a box a few feet apart: suddenly the woman and man have changed places. The disappearing and the transfers continue in front of a simple backdrop.

A remake of Edwin S. Porter's film of the same title.

A brief vaudeville-style demonstration of a "Dog Transformator," a machine that instantly turns dogs into sausages, and amazingly, sausages back into dogs.

In a public place in Constantinople at the corner of a bazaar, the executioner is seated upon a stone and is resting from his daily labors while eating a crust of bread. Suddenly there come running into the place a lot of Turkish men and women preceding some Turkish policemen, who drag along four prisoners in chains. The policemen shut up the four prisoners in the pillory. Their four heads stick up through the huge plank, which is provided with four openings. One of the policemen urges the executioner to decapitate the prisoners. He accordingly seizes a mighty sabre and cuts off by a single stroke the four heads, which roll upon the ground.

A Jew who mocked Jesus on the cross is visited by a devil and an angel.

An actuality of the Brock's fireworks factory to celebrate its 40th anniversary organizes. The final shot has two flaming portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, originally presented by Brock's at the coronation in 1902. The film is a cornucopia of colors, as it was originally a hand-painted film. The 2011 restoration has tried to revive the brilliance and the impact of colors through digital reproduction. The original film archival print is at the National Cinema Museum.

The adventures of an inattentive man who can't look away from his book.

Billy Bitzer filmed 21 short actualities inside the Pittsburgh Westinghouse Works in April and May of 1904. Audiences of the day would have been treated to footage of factory panoramas, women winding armatures and turbines being assembled. These industrial films were produced for the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company.

A magic show.

Only 8 surviving seconds of a man getting great pleasure from smoking a cigar.

A camera moving forward on an overhead crane gives a traveling view of men working on machinery. Carts carrying parts and pieces of machinery pass by on rails; cranes lift machinery; and men perform their various duties, including hammering objects. (Library of Congress)