Société Générale des Cinématographes Éclipse

Arthème loves playing the clarinet. He plays it in the streets, in the park, in the streetcar (at least when he does not miss it!). When he unfortunately walks under a piano clumsy removers are hauling, the heavy instrument falls down on him and he swallows his clarinet. A lot of people try to extirpate the protruding instrument but they all fail. Three farriers finally succeed in making him return to his former self.

To the rhythm of a frenzied choreography, acrobatic matches come to life on a black background. Leaving their matchbox, they line the film in circular, concentric movements. In an almost aquatic momentum, the squadron of little bits of wood mould the contours of a character, a run-of-the-mill smoker, before transforming into a funny harness. The film ends when the matches, again transformed, take on the appearance of a distinguished man who, after several attempts, finally finds a way of lighting his cigarette.

The cyclist is dispatched upon an important errand, and his humorous and alarming adventures by the way form the subject of this series. Misadventure follows misadventure with great frequency, but the cyclist comes up smiling every time, mounts his machine, and again resumes his journey. Accidents which would maim or kill an ordinary mortal serve only to spur him on to fresh exertions in a mad search for physical inconveniences and dangers, which always present themselves. (Picture World)

Jeanne Doré becomes the accomplice of her son Jacques who unfortunately commits a crime to help his mistress, Fanny, find money.

Polycarpe -- that's Charles Servaes -- encounters a painter in a museum. He strikes a funny pose and the painter decides he wants to paint that picture. However a succession of obstacles get in their way.

An animation where real life objects turn into animations.

"A charming story of a young society girl and the pathetic love of a youth..." Considered a lost film.

The homeless Polycarpe steals a rifle from some careless society sportsmen and goes on a mindless shooting spree. (MoMA)

Polycarpe wants to sleep, but the woman of the house beats him awake. When he falls back asleep, his shoes tie themselves, as does his cravat. Indeed, everything works for him when he sleeps.

Charles Servaes finds a coin on the ground and takes possession. When he tries to use it to pay for his cab ride, the cabbie says it's counterfeit. Sorry! I've nothing else, being a comic slapstick bum, indicates Servaes, and goes on his way to not pay a succession of people.

Artheme takes his elderly uncle for a walk in his wheelchair, but abandons the invalid in the woods overnight when he spots a pretty girl. (MoMA)

Charles Servaes as Polycarpe becomes an inspector of sort; he goes around measure the length of women's skirts in Paris to make sure they don't reveal tooo much leg for the moral Apaches of Montmartre.

An Émile Cohl animation short.

French adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”.

Accident-prone Polycarpe wreaks havoc on a construction site—a popular location for so many early film comedies.

Artheme is fascinated when he sees a conjurer do some simple tricks with a magic wand, and so he steals it, proceeding to change a horse into a cow,an auto into a donkey cart,and a man into demon in a park.

The sugarcane industry in Argentina: the factory, the train, the workers' houses, the Indigenous workers.

Detective Nat Pinkerton is captured by a gang of murderous bank robbers known as The Black Riders, but he turns the tables on them in the nick of time.