The Slower Road

This film (from 1902) features a “phantom” tram ride, where the audience is taken along the route of the electric tram and shown the sights along the way.

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Next, another street scene; this one shot in Glasgow, Scotland, also in 1901:

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I apologize for the confusion on the “dressed all in black” post. I’ve just realized that, for some reason, the video didn’t embed properly, and so no one was actually able to watch it (without clicking over to YouTube).

In case you tried, and failed, and were disappointed … here is the link to the YouTube page with the video of Emperor Franz Joseph’s funeral procession:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKrhLVe6hXo&feature=player_embedded

The original post has also been updated to include this link instead of the (theoretically) embedded video.

Starting with the video below, we have five chances to look back at daily life in the very early twentieth century. All five of these videos were created by an Edwardian-era film company that made “everyday life” movies, which were commissioned by the owners and operators of traveling fairs in the U.K.

These five films, and all the other daily-life films made by the same company (showing soccer matches, bicycle races, and much more) gave the “actors” a chance to see themselves on film and to see their friends and co-workers and hometowns. After the films were made and viewed, they were, inexplicably, stored in barrels and forgotten … for nearly a hundred years. In the early 1990s, they were re-discovered and the British Film Institute has been working to preserve them and the unparalleled view of daily life they offer.

Each of the five clips that I’ll be posting here includes narration about the film company, the films themselves, their initial showings, etc.

I hope you enjoy watching all five of these.

The first is a bustling street scene in Manchester, England, in 1901:

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The 1916 funeral procession of Emperor Franz Joseph I …

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKrhLVe6hXo&feature=player_embedded