Robert W. Paul

A stationary camera looks on as two dapper gents play a game of chess. One drinks and smokes, and when he looks away, his opponent moves two pieces. A fight ensues, first with the squirting of a seltzer bottle, then with fisticuffs. The combatants wrestle each other to the floor and continue the fight out of the camera's view, hidden by the table. The waiter arrives to haul both of them out. (imdb)

A barmaid plies a swell with smiles and with cherries from a box that's just been delivered. When she refuses a cherry to a roughly-dressed tradesman who runs a tab at the bar, he pays off his debt in a huff, using all his week's pay. He then storms penniless and without provisions into his ill-furnished house where his wife and two children, ill-clad and ill-fed, cower. Is there any hope for him and for his family? If he does realize how low he's sunk, what help is there to lift him up? (imdb)

A satire on the way that audiences unaccustomed to the cinema didn't know how to react to the moving images on a screen - in this film, an unsophisticated (and stereotypical) country yokel is alternately baffled and terrified, in the latter case by the apparent approach of a steam train (imdb)

Outside an art exhibit, an elderly couple are sitting on a bench, enjoying some refreshments. As two well-dressed women pass by and enter the exhibit, the man takes an extra drink from a bottle. The woman seems eager for him to finish, so that they also can go inside. (imdb)

Spectators at a horse track watch as the horses race into the shot from the right. After the riders have cleared, many people including policeman run onto the lane and the scene looks rather chaotic.

A man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's stationary range. The cop runs after the cab, the woman dashes to the body. The cop brings back the driver; is the victim dead? (imdb)

Passengers sit in a small car which trundles up a swooping railway track then performs a 180' turn at its summit before swooping back down on a parallel track. (imdb)

Bridge and street scenes were pretty common subjects for filmmakers in the early days of cinema because of the amount of movement. Blackfriars Bridge was apparently fairly new when this film was shot, replacing the previous bridge which had been built in the 1700s. There isn't a car in sight and what traffic there is proceeds at a stately pace. You even see people walking along the middle of the road. (imdb)

Groom flirts with a laundress who ducks him in a tub of suds. (imdb)

A burglar ties up a woman while the husband hides under the bed. (imdb)

It's a very short piece showing women cycling through Hyde Park. (imdb)

It was filmed in June 1898, and chronicles, as its title suggests, the launching of HMS Albion. Perhaps the fact that the Duchess of York was unable to smash the bottle against the ship's hull should have served as an omen, because when the ship finally rumbled down into the water, its' entry created a mini tidal wave that swept a section of the crowd into the water and 38 people subsequently drowned. (imdb)

One of the prettiest pictures of child life we have yet offered. Two pretty children are seated in their high chairs playing "Tea Party" with their dishes arranged about them... (imdb)

Royal Train is a short piece of film shot from a static camera which captures the arrival of the royal train into a station where it is greeted by a crowd held back by a row of policemen. (imdb)

Early city street footage.

Bookmaker struggles with police and is arrested. (imdb)

This film is set aboard a boat in which we see a naval officer playing a game of tetherball (a bit like swingball) with civilian passengers, and looks like it was filmed by a bored cameraman. (imdb)

Robber forces wayfarer to undress. (imdb)

Passenger drops child from steam launch; it is rescued by swimmer from river bank. (imdb)

Husband comes home late and wakes the wife. (imdb)

The Sirdar, for those of you that don't know, was the Commander of the Egyptian army, which was under British rule when this film was shot, and the Sirdar when this film was made was none other than doughty old Lord Kitchener, the man who led her army into the Great War and pointed his finger at those lingerers back home. We see the great man's carriage pull up at the Guild Hall but little more. (imdb)

Comic Costume Race is an 1896 British short black-and-white silent actuality film, directed by Robert W. Paul, featuring comic costume scramble at the Music Hall Sports on 14 July, 1896 at Herne Hill, London. The film was, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "presented at Windsor Castle on 23 November 1896," which, "enabled Paul to add a royal seal of approval to his advertisements." (mubi.com)

A documentary clip from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A documentary clip from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A documentary short from Robert W. Paul (imdb)

A documentary short from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A documentary clip from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A documentary short from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A documentary short from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A documentary short from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

Documentary short from Robert W. Paul. (imdb)

A girl tickles her two brothers, hides under the bed and causes a pillow fight. (imdb)

This Robert W. Paul film shows a blacksmith at work fixing horseshoes. (imdb)

This Robert W. Paul shows a war reenactment. (imdb)

The focus of the documentary was to show what methods of training etc were used to turn a raw recruit into a fine British soldier and it was made by British pioneer RW Paul. (imdb)

Believed to be the earliest surviving film of Norway. (imdb)

This is an interesting excerpt from days of old. Robert Paul employed cinematographer Paul Robello (from Scotland) to record a wedding, horses stampeding and cars en route to Aberdeen University. (imdb)

Robert Paul's productions are usually held out as primitives in regards to editing; most of the editing seems to have been concerned with the matter of camera tricks. With this news short, however, we see something a little different. There are six scenes in all, including one sequence in which the Prince and Princess of Wales are preceded by their shadows. (imdb)

A convict escapes from Portland Quarry and is caught in the woods by bloodhounds from Radnage kennels.