Movies: Walter R. Booth

BBC Four’s new documentary takes us on a journey through more than a century of animation. It examines the creative and technical inventiveness of some of the great animation pioneers who have worked in Britain – trailblazing talents such as Len Lye,...

Filmed in 35mm and in black and white, this short silent film was produced by the English film pioneer R. W. Paul, and directed by Walter R. Booth and was filmed at Paul's Animatograph Works. It was released in November 1901. As was common in cinema'...

A Swiss tourist knocks the head off a negro waiter....

Vesuvius erupts and people escape from a room as the ceiling falls....

An inventor uses a wireless controlled flying torpedo to destroy enemy airships....

A man and a woman talk beside a street near a corner where a cop stands. Just as a horse-drawn cart rounds the corner, the man backs off the sidewalk saying good-by to his companion. The horse and cart flatten him and continue on, out of the camera's...

Stop-motion animation of putty modeling itself into faces....

An up to date idea and a great picture. The professor sits in his laboratory with his newly invented baby incubator. A mother who is anxious for the growth of her child enters, places her baby in care of the professor, who promptly places it in the i...

A conjurer makes furniture return from the bailiff's....

Two sports are seen drinking beer and arguing as to the qualities of certain prize fighters. They make a bet, and to prove it, each pulls his favorite pugilist from his pocket, and they set them on the table. A hot battle ensues, in which one of the ...

Using a futuristic submarine, pirates kidnap a young couple, torpedo a passenger ship, travel under the sea to salvage bullion, then make their escape by taking to the air....

The devil hijacks a train trip in France. Made by magician turned filmmaker Walter Booth, who established the Charles Urban Trading Company to make films in his own London garden....

An old proprietor is startled and haunted by the strange happenings inside his curiosity shop....

The scene is a railroad track on the side of a steep mountain, with a tunnel in the background, toward which a train is running at a high rate of speed. At this instant the audience is appalled at the sight of a second train rushing out of the tunnel...

A miser dies of shock when the ghost of a poor woman appears....

A mix of spectacle, animation and dance, the film reveals an early delight in the potential for creative fun with film form. Its director, Walter R. Booth had been described as making British films which attempted to out-Méliès Méliès....

A magical glowing white motorcar ignores policemen, drives up buildings, flies through outer space, and can transform into a horse and carriage....

Anarchists build a super aircraft and bomb a railway, a fort and St. Paul's....

Trick film. A stage magician transforms a woman into a butterfly and himself into a giant bat. This film is considered lost....

On the roof of an ancient palace appear a young Knight and his lady. While they are making love an ugly old witch appears and is rather troublesome. The Knight commands her to leave, and when he is about to force her away she sits on her broom and ri...