I find Rocky about as sexy as a puppy.

I'm starting to make my way through the silent short films I dvr'd from TCM on Monday night. Almost finished with the Edison set, and there are some really interesting things there.

First, I'd never watched "The Great Train Robbery" all the way through, and it's a really interesting story to watch. Fun thing I noticed: when the tied-up railroad employee tries to call for help, the actor uses one of his "tied behind his back" hands to help himself sit up, then puts the hand back behind his back. Oops! There was a sequel (of sorts) made a few years later called "The Little Train Robbery," which remade the first film with child actors--very cute, and with much less shoooting involved.

Speaking of children's stories, there is a rather offputting adaptation of Goldilocks which features a cute stop-motion animation of Steiff teddy bears performing elaborate gymnastics, but then concludes with Goldilocks running away from Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear, finding a hunter who then proceeds to shoot both Mama Bear and Papa Bear, and then takes Baby Bear prisoner (the only reason he doesn't blow him away as well is because Goldilocks stops him) and leads him and Goldilocks back to the Bears' house where he retrieves all of the Steiff teddy bears and gives them all to Goldilocks, the greedy brat.

There's also a very surreal dream short called "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend," which has as its main actor a precursor of Mr. Creosote, who sloppily stuffs his face with rarebit and glasses of wine (spewing some of the wine back out), and then stumbles back home in a drunken haze, where he dreams he's flying/driving his bed over New York City.

There's also a very surreal dream short called "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend,"

Based on the classic comic strip by Winsor McCay. Who also did one the earliest masterpieces in comic strips, Little Nemo In Slumberland and was also a pioneer in animation (cf., Gertie the Dinosaur).

That's a Winsor McCay story? Cool! I'm very familiar with Gertie, a very sweetly drawn dinosaur.

I'm very familiar with Gertie, a very sweetly drawn dinosaur.

He hand drew every frame. Draftmanship: not what it used to be.

I wish I could have seen one of his presentations with Gertie, when he'd stand on stage, run a clip of the cartoon, and then interact with Gertie by asking her questions, have her "do tricks" on his command, and otherwise use her as a partner in his stage show.

Wow! Gertie

Isn't she sweet? I love how McCay made her like an overgrown puppy. A very engaging character.

Oh, the other short that blew my mind on that Edison collection was a sound film from 1894. 1894!!! Remarkable.

Oh, the other short that blew my mind on that Edison collection was a sound film from 1894.

Is that the one with William Dickson playing the violin? Actually, it made a lot of sense for Edison to experiment with sound-on-disc. He initially saw the cinema as a sort of phonograph-for-the-eyes anyway, hence the Kinetoscope.

Both The Great Train Robbery and Dream of a Rarebit Fiend are by Edwin S. Porter, one of the most interesting characters in early cinema, and arguably the first important American director.