Edwin S. Porter
1870 - 1941
The Great Train Robbery
Edwin S. Porter
Gilbert M. Anderson, John Manus Dougherty Sr.
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.
The Great Train Robbery
Faust
Edwin S. Porter
William Sorelle
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. Mephistopheles appears and offers him his services in return for Faust's soul. The aged philosopher refuses to accept until the devil shows him a vision of Marguerite in all her maiden simplicity and beauty. Faust agrees to accept the compact providing Mephistopheles will give him youth, wealth and love.
Faust
Hearts Adrift
Edwin S. Porter
Mary Pickford, Harold Lockwood
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. One day, however...
Hearts Adrift
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Wallace McCutcheon, Edwin S. Porter
John P. Brawn
A live-action film adaptation of the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. This silent short film follows the established theme: the “Rarebit Fiend” gorges himself on rarebit and thus suffers spectacular hallucinatory dreams.
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Life of an American Fireman
George S. Fleming, Edwin S. Porter
Vivian Vaughan, James H. White
Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of firemen responding to a house fire. They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from the burning house. But wait, she tells them of her child yet asleep in the burning bedroom...
Life of an American Fireman
His Mother's Thanksgiving
Edwin S. Porter
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. When he achieves “fame and fortune” six years later, his proud mother can’t wait to welcome him home for Thanksgiving. Robert, however, intends to stay in the city to enjoy a holiday feast with his society friends and beautiful fiancée. When Mom decides to pay a surprise visit on Thanksgiving Day, she is saddened to find that her son is so ashamed of her that he relegates her to an upstairs room, out of sight and out of mind.
His Mother's Thanksgiving
Jack and the Beanstalk
George S. Fleming, Edwin S. Porter
Thomas White, James H. White
Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk. Borrowing on cinematographic methods reminiscent of 'Georges Melies' , Porter uses animation, double exposure, and trick photography to illustrate the fairy's apparitions, Jack's dream, and the fast growing beanstalk.
Jack and the Beanstalk
