Movies & TV Shows from 1907

Polichinelle the servant (called Harlequin in the English language version) rescues his girlfriend from a gang of decadent aristocrats, who have transformed her into a mechanical doll.

John, who loves the bottle a little too much, is one of a group of sightseers. Too drunk to follow the party, the reeling drunkard remains on the site of a ruin where he starts having hallucinations.

Actuality footage of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II during their August 1907 meeting at Swinemünde (today Świnoujście), showing the monarchs coming aboard the German battleship SMS Deutschland and observing naval manoeuvres. A brief record of imperial pageantry in the Baltic, typical of pre-newsreel royal “actualities.”

In this film, Méliès concocts a combination fairy- and morality tale about the foolishness of trying to look too deeply into the workings of an unstable and inscrutable universe. At a medieval school, an old astronomer begins to teach a class of young men, all armed with telescopes, about the art of scrutinising an imminent eclipse. When a mechanical clock strikes twelve, all the young men rush to the windows and fix their telescopes on the heavens.

A dog runs away with a length of sausage. Chaos erupts as the butcher chasing the dog collides with bystanders who angrily follow.

French film starring Max Linder, released in 1907.

In the midst of the Civil War, a wife saves the day by swapping places with her captured and soon-to-be-executed husband.

Max causes havoc when he joins other skaters on a frozen lake.

Tales of the Old West and the fight of good against evil.

The story of the life and passion of Jesus Christ, from the proclamation of his birth to his ascension into heaven.

Dramatization of the real-life shooting of Stanford White by Harry K. Thaw.

The film, a parody of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, follows a fisherman, Yves, who dreams of traveling by submarine to the bottom of the ocean, where he encounters both realistic and fanciful sea creatures, including a chorus of naiads played by dancers from the Théâtre du Châtelet. Méliès's design for the film includes cut-out sea animals patterned after Alphonse de Neuville's illustrations for Verne's novel.

A boy spreads glue all over town.

The story of a little girl and her pets, a horse and a dog, whose marvelous intelligence is most strikingly shown. The little girl, whose home is at the seaside, goes out on the rocks to play with her dog. There she romps with her pet and quite loses sight of the constantly rising tide. Suddenly she discovers that the rocks are surrounded, and her escape entirely cut off. Turning to her dog, she motions him to the land; instantly he is off, swimming to shore and dashing across the beach. He reaches the stable, where he unties the pet horse, then leading the way, he and the horse dash off to the surf, through which they plunge. The horse soon reaches the rock, which he has much difficulty in approaching, but finally the little girl succeeds in getting upon his back, and is then swiftly borne to shore.

A generous boy tries to help a girl who does not believe in Santa Claus because of her family's poverty.

This film from George Melies is sadly one that's only available in fragments. The film starts off with a title card stating that a drunk man has just thrown his family out a window. We see a couple of them landing on the ground and then we go back to the room where the drunk is now trying to kill himself.

The first adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

A boy breaks his sister's doll and it mends, grows, tears him up and eats him.

It is an early example of the rural melodramas that were going to be popular in Spain, with situations that Bunuel will enjoy subverting. The outside locations have probably not been modified and therefore present an interesting reflection of the rural Spain around Valencia. The blind man of the title is not central character of the narrative, a nice twist.

A traveler stays the night at a rural inn, but gets no rest as he is tormented by various spectres and mysterious happenings.