The Story the Biograph Told (1904)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Release Date:

January 1904 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

An office boy at Biograph learns how to operate a camera, and secretly films the boss kissing his secretary...

Also Known As:

Caught by Moving Pictures (USA) (alternative title)
The Story the Moving Pictures Told (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

3 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

American Mutoscope & Biograph

Trivia:

Biograph production number 2705.

Relatively Interesting Ideas, & Works Rather Well

The short comedy "The Story the Biograph Told" works rather well, at least if you watch closely enough, and the basic idea is somewhat interesting as well. A fair number of movies in the earliest years of cinema examined the reactions and attitudes of various persons towards the new technology of motion pictures, and yet this one is a little different from most.

Several other features of the era were inspired by the illusion of motion that may often have confused the earliest movie audiences. This one, instead, looks at the consequences of a motion picture camera's ability to record events for future viewing by others.

The technique is unrefined, and as a result you have to watch closely to understand all that is happening. In particular, the characters are not always as distinctive as they probably would have been in a film made a few years later. But the story is entertaining, and in general it repays the attention you need to pay to it.

The basic story idea was probably a bit ahead of its time, and it was probably more widely used in the heyday of silent comedy, by comics such as Roscoe Arbuckle. There is also one sequence here that is quite imaginative for its day, using a double exposure to communicate one of the story developments. Overall, there's more than enough here to make this an interesting little film.