Edwin S. Porter Trailers
Before the Nickelodeon: The Cinema of Edwin S. Porter TrailerLife of an American Fireman Trailer
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Influenced by both the "Brighton school" and the story films of Georges Méliès, Porter went on to make important shorts such as Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). In them, he helped to develop the modern concept of continuity editing, paving the way for D.W. Griffith who would expand on Porter's discovery that the unit of film structure was the shot rather than the scene. Porter, in an attempt to resist the new industrial system born out of the popularity of nickelodeons, left Edison in 1909 to form his own production company which he eventually sold in 1912.
Porter remains an enigmatic figure in motion picture history. Though his significance as director of The Great Train Robbery and other innovative early films is undeniable, he rarely repeated an innovation after he had used it successfully, never developed a consistent directorial style, and in later years never protested when others rediscovered his techniques and claimed them as their own. He was a modest, quiet, cautious man who felt uncomfortable working with the famous stars he directed starting in 1912.
He has directed four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Life of an American Fireman (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) and Tess of the Storm Country (1914).
Most Popular Edwin S. Porter Trailers
Total trailers found: 197
01 November 1913
A French sailor, imprisoned for years on false charges of conpiring against the king, escapes and exacts revenge on his accusers.
14 October 1909
One of the first, of not the first, film adaptation of Grimm's fairytale.
14 December 1914
Jean finds the boyish manner in which her late father raised her, is now causing quite a lot of trouble for her, and she ends up in a reformatory.
21 February 1900
The scene opens on a theatrical stage. The magician enters from the wings, and making a bow to the audience, removes his coat and hat and they disappear mysteriously in the air.
01 January 1900
The professor shows his power to Mephisto by mysteriously placing a young lady in a swing. Mephisto then shows his power by making the young lady disappear from the swing, to the surprise of the professor.
27 April 1901
This wonderful dog "Mannie," owned by the vaudeville star, Miss Laura Comstock, is a most learned animal.
21 May 1900
Marguerite is seated in front of the fireplace, Faust standing by her side. Mephistopheles enters and offers his sword to Faust, commanding him to behead the fair Marguerite.
19 October 1901
This film is difficult to classify. It opens on a scene showing a mourner with bowed head sitting in front of what appears to be a tombstone.
16 November 1901
This early docudrama shows Auburn Prison and recreates the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley of the United States.
16 January 1904
Opens with a woman posing on a pedestal, dressed in a white body leotard with a sash tied at her hips.
15 September 1911
The old lighthouse keeper lives peacefully with his two daughters, who are both engaged to fisherman.
22 November 1910
This holiday-themed melodrama released by Edison Studios in 1910 concerns Robert, a young man who leaves his mother’s home in New England to forge a career in the big city.
09 March 1900
"Nothing new, but an old thing done over again and done well. Some one has attempted to describe a kiss as "something made of nothing," but this is not one of that kind, but one of those old fashioned "home made" kind that sets the whole audience into merriment and motion, and has always proven a popular subject.
22 June 1911
A 1911 silent drama film written and directed by Edwin S. Porter and Lois Weber. Starring Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley, and Charles De Forrest.
24 December 1909
Faust, an aged philosopher and magician who has grown weary of life and has sought in vain for the secret of eternal youth, decides, after a night's long vigil, to call forth from the realms of darkness the evil one to aid him.
07 December 1903
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.
09 February 1914
A lost film. A man and a woman are shipwrecked on a desert island. It doesn't take long before they fall in love and, figuring that they would never see civilization again, declare themselves married and eventually have a child.
15 November 1915
Bella Donna ( Pauline Frederick ) a seductive woman snares Nigel Armine ( Thomas Holding ) into marriage and he takes her to Egypt to live.
11 April 1902
The Washington Star of April 1st, 1900, gave the following account of the ceremony: "Over 40,000 women and children passed through the White House Gates to-day during the hours set apart for the great National show of Egg Rolling, and when the President stepped on the south front gallery at 4:15 P.
22 May 1903
It seems as if there was no subject so mundane or seedy that it was considered unworthy of filming by Edison and his contemporaries at the turn of the century.
02 June 1906
Two boys and their dog set out to play a series of practical jokes on their neighbors. After they have caused several disruptions, the police are called, and soon the boys are on the run, pursued by the police and others.
16 March 1901
Filmed at the second inauguration of William McKinley on March 4, 1901, this short captures the president taking the oath of office at the U.
22 May 1903
A magnificent picture of this boat making a run and starting the water from a least a dozen nozzles at once.
15 July 1902
Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk.
11 November 1901
A most perfect picture of the Pan-American Exposition buildings, including the Electric Tower and Temple of Music, as they appear at night.
01 October 1902
Scene Bowery. Young woman drops her handkerchief while passing a Rube. He picks it up and gives it to her.
12 April 1902
A dissipated man sits at a table with a decanter of whiskey and a glass beside him. A revolver is on the opposite side of the table.
20 September 1914
A lost film. Queen Anna Victoria of Herzegovina is exiled from her tiny country and forced to live in poverty in America.
13 May 1908
The Proposal: The gentleman burglar walking with his lady love. They admire the grandeur and beauty of nature.
01 August 1905
The second Empire State Express, behind a 4-4-2 Atlantic locomotive, demonstrates how to take water on the fly by scooping it out of a pan set between the railroad tracks.
08 August 1901
“The picture [shows] a number of Esquimaux picking nickels from cracks in a board with their dog whips, in which sport they are very expert.
01 February 1900
The scene takes place in a fashionable cafe. A well dressed couple enter, and after a careful perusal of the menu, conclude on an order of boiled eggs and Welsh rarebit.
24 February 1902
A fire has swept through Durland's Riding Academy in Manhattan. The fire has mostly died down, but firefighters are still at the scene, hosing down the smoking remains of the buildings.
21 August 1901
Here we have recorded a very novel scene, the camera having been placed in the basket of the captive balloon at the Pan-American Exposition.
18 January 1908
A woodsman leaves a hut followed by a woman with their baby. Nearby some men chop down a tree. The baby is left outside the hut, but an eagle flies away with it.
20 July 1911
Little Sherlock Holmes, Jr., reads the doughty doings of his hero-god, and at once determines to become a detective himself.
15 January 1904
The severe cold of the winter of 1903-04 allowed the rapids of Niagara Falls to freeze over, allowing the brave tourists to enter the chasm and cross to the other side over the formed ice bridge.
09 May 1903
A fine panoramic view of this busy market on a Friday morning. Immense throngs of people are passing along the stands and making their purchases of fish.
09 March 1901
An old maid is walking about the studio while the photographer is getting his camera ready. She first looks at a hanger, which immediately falls from the wall, not being able to stand her gaze.
21 May 1900
This picture shows an old gentleman seated at his shaving table. The razor is evidently giving him a great deal of trouble.
22 May 1903
There must have been millions of subjects for Edison's filmmakers to point there cameras at back in 1903 so why on earth they thought that the collection and disposal of New York City's rubbish would prove a suitable subject to present to their dwindling audiences is a mystery.
11 November 1915
Zaza is a music hall star in Paris. She meets Bernard Dufrene and a flirtation develops into an intense love on her part.
25 August 1906
Captain Clearfield, a wealthy landlord, assaults Kathleen with the help of an accomplice, but Terence O'More arrives in time to break up the attack.
17 June 1899
This commercial traveler has evidently had a wet day judging from the strange things he sees at his hotel.
13 April 1902
This picture shows the prisoners after completing their day's work of cleaning up the grounds of the Charleston Exposition, taking their positions along the long chain which secures the whole band of prisoners.
12 November 1904
Klingsor seeks admission to the Holy Grail. Evil summons Kundry. Herzeloid appears with the child Parsifal.
11 August 1903
Shows a bedroom and a man asleep in bed. A burglar cautiously raises the window, climbs in, and proceeds to go through the man's clothes.
21 May 1900
The scene opens in the interior of an artist's studio. Mephisto appears mysteriously and signals the pictures to come to life.
01 July 1905
Amusing characters board an unsteady trolley at each stop, and then abandon the streetcar in order to chase a man who brought on board a basket full of snakes that got loose.
07 November 1903
Buster Brown plays a practical joke on his mother, persuading her to to put her hands into a pan of lobsters, then puts a bunch of them in his father's bed.
24 February 1906
A live-action film adaptation of the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend by American cartoonist Winsor McCay.
18 January 1915
A silent comedy drama film directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin S. Porter
23 March 1901
It shows a garden wall in the background. Two lovers appear and lean over the garden gate where the moon throws a shadow upon the ground.
12 April 1915
Leone, a Papal guard, is devastated when his wife drowns herself after mistakenly thinking that he had abandoned her.
07 April 1902
A dissipated looking man is seated at a table with a decanter of whiskey and a glass beside him. A large revolver is on the opposite side of the table.
10 October 1915
A silent romantic drama film directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin S. Porter
10 September 1913
A lost film. A successful stage actress with a hidden past as a criminal is kept on the path of righteousness by a benefactor.
05 August 1915
A successful artist and a struggling one both love the same woman; she chooses the poor one but as the years roll on and other choices she makes and her husband’s misunderstanding lead to a near breaking point for the couple.
12 August 1903
A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella.
