D'où viennent les faux cheveux

On a market day in Kernascleden, two Breton women exchange their hair for a few coins. The hair becomes hairpieces. Last scene, an elegant Parisian removes her hat and exposes her generous wig skillfully coiffed.

Pulmonary Hydatid Cyst Operation

Also known as The Operation of Dr. Alejandro Posadas. Filmed with early orthochromatic film in the Hospital de Clínicas de la Ciudad in Buenos Aires.

Censored!

A documentary about the cultural effect of film censorship, focusing on the tumultuous times of the teens and early 1920s in America.

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

El circo

Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.

The Chillouks, a Central African Tribe

Short documentary on a central african tribe called 'The Chillouks'.

How the Telephone Talks

"All sounds travel in waves much the same as ripples in water." Educational film produced by Bray Studios New York, which was the dominant animation studio based in the United States in the years surrounding World War I.

Série 7 (Éclatements de bulles de savon)

Lucien Bull was a pioneer in chronophotography. Chronophotography is defined as "a set of photographs of a moving object, taken for the purpose of recording and exhibiting successive phases of motion."

Felling of Hibson Road Brick Works Chimney in Nelson

It is a dramatic film, with its colossal explosion and smouldering remains. Within seconds of the chimney's collapse, crowds swarm in to inspect the site; issues of the crowd's health and safety are clearly not a concern, as people smile, wave and salute the camera.

The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam

A documentary on the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Made by Istituto Luce, there is an understandable focus on Italian athletes, but it is the first Olympic documentary that describes the techniques of certain events.

Laplander Feeding His Reindeer

Short documentary released in 1907.

The Funeral of Vera Kholodnaya

This film records the vast public response to the early death of Vera Kholodnaya, the first star of Russian cinema.

Antarctic Expedition: Sir George Newnes' Farewell to Officers and Crew

This 1898 film is the earliest known surviving footage relating to the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. Sir George Newnes, who first published Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Strand Magazine, is seen here bidding farewell to the crew.

The Strength and Agility of Insects

A short, early documentary work showing insects exhibiting extreme strength and agility.

Den Sidste Stump Af Østervold Graves Bort For At Give Plads Til Boulevardbanen

The remains of the Baltic Violence have been eroded away by the large steam excavator. There is a man standing at the railway cutting as trains pass. He throws something into the railway cutting. This person is seen in several of the recordings from 1913. It may be journalist Anker Kirkeby.

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

The Dangers of the Fly

The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.

A Visit to Los Angeles

To popularize the idea of automobile travel, Ford Motor Company produced Ford Educational Weekly, a film magazine distributed free to theaters. One 1916 series featured "Visits to American Cities." In this episode, Los Angeles is featured at the very beginning of the boom created by oil, movies and aircraft. On the occasion of its centennial in 1953, Ford donated its film to the National Archives and Records Service; this copy derives from a fine grain master printed from the Archive's preservation negative. Music by Frederick Hodges.