Movies: Edison Studios

A poor young boy goes on a field trip and dreams of escaping to a land beyond the sunset....

After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits....

Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster....

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster &...

Based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe: Eliza, a slave who has a young child, pleads with Tom, another slave, to escape with her. Tom does not leave, but Eliza flees with her child. After getting some help to escape the slave traders who are loo...

A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the second motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States....

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a ...

Lee Martin, one of the cowboy stars in 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West', rides a bronco as a crowd looks on. While the horse is trying to throw Martin off its back, another cowboy stands on top of a fence rail and occasionally fires his six-shooter, to spu...

A well-dressed woman leaves her home and takes a carriage to a department store. While she is in the store, she steals several items, and is caught by store employees. Meanwhile, a poor woman with two small children steals a loaf of bread out of desp...

Experimental film made to test the original cylinder format of the Kinetoscope and believed to be the first film shot in the United States. It shows a blurry figure in white standing in one place making large gestures and is only a few seconds long....

This is a film taken of the execution of Topsy, an elephant employed to help build Luna Park on Coney Island....

Vesta Victoria Sings 'Poor John'....

Annie Oakley was probably the most famous marksman/woman in the world when this short clip was produced in Edison's Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. Barely five feet tall, Annie was always associated with the wild west, although she was...

While our photographers were crossing the Atlantic Ocean a most wonderful and sensational picture was secured, showing a storm at sea. The picture was secured by lashing the camera to the after bridge of the Kaiserine Maria Theresa, of the North Germ...

A “madman” escapes prison and the torments of his warders....

From Edison films catalog: One of the most peculiar customs of the Sioux Tribe is here shown, the dancers being genuine Sioux Indians, in full war paint and war costumes. 40 feet. 7.50. According to Edison film historian C. Musser, this film and othe...

Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around. Notable for being the first film in which a scene is being acted out....

A historical re-enactment of a naval battle in Chemulpo Bay off the coast of Korea during the Russo-Japanese war. Shows a Japanese ship damaging one Russian vessel and sinking another....

Ruthless stockbroker John McLane has ruined James Horton through reckless money management. McLane is extremely hard in business matters. When Horton’s son, Walter, confronts McLane they have a stormy altercation in which McLane is accidentally kille...

They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time....