Skip to content or footer

Back to Home

Victorian Entertainment

"We are not amused", said Queen Victoria - or so we're told. Her subjects, though, were eager for all manner of entertainments.

The first films made their homes in the fairground and the music hall, and the first filmmakers - a number of them originally showmen or magic lanternists - were more than happy to supply the laughs, the drama and the thrills that audiences demanded.

Comic skits, sight gags and dramatic scenes were hugely popular. They may have been overwhelmingly outnumbered by non-fiction subjects, but it was these entertainment films that inspired early filmmakers to many of their greatest innovations, from 'facials' (the first close-ups) to 'tricks', the inventive prototype for modern special effects. And we can see traces among these films of themes, ideas and approaches that would fuel British filmmakers for generations to come.

113 items in this collection
A classic early film gag - and a big leap forward for a fast-evolving new art

The Big Swallow

  • 1901
You'll never guess quite what this chap can hide under his cone...

The Magic Extinguisher

  • 1901
Debut film outing for Dickens' Yuletide classic

Scrooge; Or, Marley's Ghost

  • 1901
A boy examines things through his Grandmother's magnifying glass, and early film takes a huge step forward.

Grandma's Reading Glass

  • 1900
Entertaining example of early 'special effects'

Undressing Extraordinary; Or, The Troubles of a Tired Traveller

  • 1901
Innovative early film, which invents its own 'split-screen' effect

Are You There?

  • 1901
This innovative 'trick' film is a fantastical children's pantomime in miniature

Magic Sword, A Mediaeval Mystery

  • 1901

Upside Down; Or, The Human Flies

  • 1899
A peeping Tom gets a shocking glimpse of stocking in this early take on film voyeurism.

As Seen through a Telescope

  • 1900
A scene from Bleak House is the first ever screen adaptation of Charles Dickens

The Death of Poor Joe

  • 1900
I've got you under my skin... early 'trick' film having fun with the new science of x-ray photography

The X Rays

  • 1897
A terrifying first-person brush with death at the hands of a dangerous driver

How It Feels to Be Run Over

  • 1900
How many faces can one man pull while drinking one glass of beer? Far more than you might think

Comic Faces - Old Man Drinking a Glass of Beer

  • 1897
A hapless copper is left to pick up the pieces after a gruesome collision of early trick cinema and cartoonish comedy

Explosion of a Motor Car

  • 1900
This burlesque film fantasy has striking sexual overtones - and a surprising feminist twist

Artistic Creation

  • 1901
A battle of soot versus flour

The Miller and the Sweep

  • 1897
The first ever Shakespearean film - once thought to be lost - with Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the title role.

King John

  • 1899

Herbert Campbell As Little Bobby

  • 1899
A Victorian vaudeville routine is given the big screen treatment with camera tricks galore.

Clown and Police

  • 1900
These Victorian children's Christmas wishes come true in a very special early British film

Santa Claus

  • 1898
Granny's eyesight may be failing, but she won't rest until she has threaded her needle, and given us a giggle too

Grandma Threading Her Needle

  • 1900
Seen but not heard? Three children get up to mischief after mother puts them to bed in this Victorian entertainment.

Children in the Nursery

  • 1898
A Victorian gentleman's quaint morning routine - complete with cut-throat razor, scent and powder

A Quick Shave and Brush-up

  • 1900
A museum visitor takes an interest in a nude sculpture - to his wife's annoyance - in a sadly incomplete early film comedy

Come Along, Do!

  • 1898
An impressive early film special effect

A Railway Collision

  • 1900
A tramp helps himself to a farmer's milk in this knockabout Victorian comedy

Catching the Milk Thief

  • 1899
Street-level storytelling with a saucy twist in this voyeuristic Victorian comedy

A Photograph Taken from Our Area Window

  • 1901
A treat for Victorian voyeurs - and Britain's oldest erotic film?

Woman Undressing

  • 1896
A Victorian gentleman is robbed at gunpoint, not just for his wallet but for his hat and suit as well. Oh, the humiliation

Robbery

  • 1897
Film's first joke? A fresh take on an old prank.

The Biter Bit

  • 1898
After him! A tramp stealing meat kicks off one of the very first film chases

Stop Thief!

  • 1901
The man-in-the-moon plays a lunar tune

Mister Moon

  • 1901
A simple special effect gives an eerily comic twist to this film of Victorian gentleman taking some outdoor exercise

The Bathers

  • 1900
All hands to the pump as firemen and passersby tackle a fire and save the horses from a stable smothered in smoke

The Burning Stable

  • 1900
A simple special effect enlivens an early crime film

Footpads

  • 1896
The strange objects in this shop are brought uncannily to life thanks to a series of early camera tricks.

The Haunted Curiosity Shop

  • 1901
This Victorian girl is engrossed in her games, and no wonder, with a dog, two cats and a doll to play with

The Child, Dog and Pram

  • 1900
Fire! These early 20th-century firemen ride to the rescue on horse-drawn engines, bicycles and even a tandem

Answering a Call

  • 1901
All's well that ends well - which is exactly what happens when movie magic undoes a boy's wanton vandalism

The House That Jack Built

  • 1900
A philandering husband gets hung out to dry on laundry day

Hanging out the Clothes; Or, Master, Mistress and Maid

  • 1897
A conversation between two gents perks up when they see a picture of a beautiful actress in a magazine

Two Old Sports

  • 1900
Four wriggling puppies make for more than an armful - as a young woman discovers in this charming short film

Lady and Puppies

  • 1901
It's not easy for a Victorian lady to maintain her dignity on the water - and this clown certainly doesn't help

Lady and the Boat

  • 1899
A soldier takes boisterous revenge when an unwelcome stranger interrupts his romantic moment

Tommy Atkins in the Park

  • 1898
Backstage at a music hall, an actress prepares for her performance.

Lettie Limelight in Her Lair

  • 1900
Well, did you ever? Two women share juicy stories, and enjoyably shocked reactions, over tea

Scandal over the Teacups

  • 1900
Ooh la la! This chap becomes a little too engrossed in his French magazine, and ends up taking a cold shower

Soda Syphon Joke

  • 1900
A Boer War skirmish... filmed in Blackburn

Winning the V.C.

  • 1900
Close-up of a close - and painful - shave

The Dull Razor

  • 1900
A Victorian gentleman undresses for bed. Rest assured that this film contains absolutely no nudity!

Man in Bedroom

  • 1901
A copper pursues a cheeky beggar who can't possibly escape justice - or can he?

The Beggar's Deceit

  • 1900
This sequence of increasingly enthusiastic smooches was hot stuff in 1899

The Kissing Couple

  • 1899
Early advertising film demonstrating the machinery which revolutionised the printing industry

Three Linotype Machines

  • 1900
A Victorian stage spectacle filmed at the magnificent Crystal Palace in south London

The Sports and Nations' Dance, Grand Finale and Curtain, On Open Air Stage at Crystal Palace

  • 1899
A husband catches his wife with another man and takes his revenge

Lover Kisses Husband

  • 1900
The two sides of the Boer War slug it out

A Prize Fight or Glove Fight between John Bull and President Kruger

  • 1900
An entertaining early film 'trick'

The Puzzled Bather and His Animated Clothes

  • 1901
A dramatised Boer War scene

Shelling the Red Cross

  • 1900
The fabulous Deonzo Brothers in a spectacular barrel-jumping stage act

The Deonzo Brothers

  • 1901
A pet dog submits to his mistress's beautifying ministrations

The Lassie and Her Dog

  • 1901
A pantomime kitchen scene

Policeman in Schoolroom

  • 1901
Fictional treatment of a contemporary atrocity story from the 1900 Boxer rebellion in China.

Attack on a China Mission - Bluejackets to the Rescue

  • Brighton
  • 1900
An early film in-joke

The Bill Poster

  • 1899
Saucy comedy about a bride modestly disrobing whilst the husband peeks from behind a screen

The Bride's First Night

  • 1898
Mitchell & Kenyon enter the action genre, reimagining a Boer War skirmish - with Blackburn standing in for South Africa.

The Dispatch Bearer

  • 1900
A drunken spouse gets his just desserts in a timeless scene

Two A.M.; Or, The Husband's Return

  • 1896
A mischievous model turns on the artist

The Artist's Model

  • 1898
A yokel is so impressed by a conjuror's magic trick that he attempts to repeat it on his wife

The Would-be Conjuror

  • 1900
A classic saucy sketch, a chance for canoodling in the carriage as the train hits a tunnel

The Kiss in the Tunnel

  • 1899
When the bed itself is tossing and turning, how is a man supposed to get his rest?

Man by Bed

  • 1901
Crimewatch Mitchell and Kenyon style, in the first ever film to recreate a true crime.

Arrest of Goudie (1901)

  • Berry St, Liverpool
  • 1901
Two men lose it laughing at something in a magazine

Two Laughing Men

  • 1900
Frogs legs on film: trailblazing Victorian medical research

First X-ray Cinematograph Film Ever Taken

Music hall chairs: impressive acrobatics in a Victorian music hall act

Will Evans, The Musical Eccentric

  • 1899
A country yokel gets a shock in an early example of a 'film within a film'.

The Countryman and the Cinematograph

  • 1901
A dramatic rescue from a burning building by heroic firemen is one of our most important films

Fire!

  • 1901
Comic hijinks with a malodorous tramp

Weary Willie

  • West Yorkshire
  • 1898
Victorian Music hall star Lil Hawthorne sings the popular 'Kitty Mahone' in this earliest surviving 'sound film'

Kitty Mahone

  • 1900
Rare production footage of an early 'trick' film with a famous music hall performer.

Mr Moon (1901)

  • 1901
An early demonstration of Greco-Roman wrestling for the benefit of the camera

Two Wrestlers

  • 1900
Early comedy in which a cruel joke is played on an old maid

The Old Maid's Valentine

  • 1900
Beautifully-preserved early film of a young girl feeding some excitable puppies

Woman, Dog and Pups

  • 1901
An overeager guest disrupts teatime in this enigmatic slice of Victorian drama.

Afternoon Tea al Fresco

  • 1900
A grisly early fictional reconstruction inspired by atrocity stories from China's Boxer Rebellion.

Beheading a Chinese Boxer

  • 1900
This 'facial' comedy showcases the rubber face of Tom Green.

Aunt Selina - Takes Snuff, Sews and Plays with Her Cats

  • 1900
Dramatised account of Chinese rebels' violent confrontation with Christian missionaries, made in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion.

Attack on a Mission Station

  • Blackburn
  • 1900
A mysterious fragment of Victorian footage.

Collapsing Bed Scene

  • 1897

Black Face Pierrots

  • 1899
These two little lovelies were captured on screen by RW Paul and were the hit of his 1896 Alhambra show.

The Twins' Tea Party

  • 1896
When a couple's home is burgled, the missus proves her mettle by confronting the culprit, come what may

His Brave Defender

  • 1901
A splash of Victorian comedy that still reels you in

Gentleman Fishing

  • 1896
The 'Two McNaughtons' roll out their popular music-hall routine

Has He Hit Me?

  • 1898
A witty warning that medicine is not to be messed with: mix the wrong dose of powders and your bellyache may blow up

The Indian Chief and the Seidlitz Powder

  • 1901
Out-takes of the world's earliest ever 'Western' film.

Kidnapping by Indians (1899)

  • Blackburn
  • 1899
There's more than footwork going on in this dance lesson

Long Night Dance

  • 1900
A woman beating out a carpet; a frisky policeman; a husband's return... whatever will happen next?

Policeman Beaten

  • 1900
An old joke but a merry one.

A Morning Wash (1900)

  • 1900
A bracing fight scene, played out in an early purpose-built film studio.

Policeman and Burglar

  • 1902
A comic old faithful

The Postman and the Nursemaid

  • 1899
It's a lovely day in the park, for romance and daylight robbery - but will this tramp make a clean getaway?

The Tramp and the Baby's Bottle

  • 1899
Young scamps launch a snowball attack on a hapless bobby.

Snowballs (1901)

  • Glasgow
  • 1901
A policeman breaks up a gambling den, but is caught pocketing the proceeds.

Sporting Colliers and the Bobby (c.1901)

  • 1901
A faithless wife, with a penchant for men in uniform, entertains a sailor before her policeman husband comes home.

The Unfaithful Wife (c.1900)

  • 1900
A boy asks a magician to entertain his sick sister in this edition of RW Paul's Sentimental Songs with Animated Illustrations.

The Waif and the Wizard; or, The Home Made Happy

  • 1901
Plenty of laughs to be had as these Victorian clowns attempt to run a charity race - if they can get their wigs on

Comic Costume Race

  • 1896
Harsh reality interrupts an older man's reverie of flirting with a pretty young woman

Let Me Dream Again

  • 1900
One of the earliest surviving British adverts

The Spirit of His Forefathers

  • 1900
What larks during the morning wash, swapping bootblack for the soap...

A Morning Wash

  • 1900
A whistlestop tour of early filmmaking, from street scenes to a thrilling Western.

How We Filmed in the Nineties

  • 1936
Double nostalgia, as this 1930 newsreel looks back at a London landmark in earlier days

Once upon a Time...

  • 1897

Nurses Attending the Wounded

  • 1899
Quick on the draw: Victorian cartoonist Tom Merry does a rapid sketch of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Tom Merry, Lightning Cartoonist, Sketching Kaiser Wilhelm II

  • 1895

Good Night

  • St Pancras
  • 1898