Liquid Electricity
(synopsis from the "Royal Bioscope Animated Photographs" catalog)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liquid Electricity
A very clever, humorous picture. Professor Smiths invents a marvelous Liquid which causes his subjects to perform remarkable feats so rapidly that one really wants to know the address of this remarkable inventor. The humorous situations are unique. 8 minutes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's a very short synopsis for an 8 minute film but actually this description for the most part says all there really is to say.
Liquid Electricity is a "one trick pony". The whole film is fairly much just a vehicle for the inventor's shenanigans as he sprays his liquid in turn on road cleaners, swimmers, a shop clerk, labourers, a cabhorse, a messenger boy and a policeman.
There are clips of this short work on a video tape called "Hollywood - The Trick of the Light". As the narrator points out, the cameraman would under-crank the camera. (They were hand cranked back then, keep in mind!!) When played at normal speed, guess what? The action would be speeded up. Clever, huh?
The tape didn't show the whole 8 minutes but "Treasures from the Film Archives", a book by Ronald S. Magliozzi, does place a complete print at both the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art.
The film was alternately called "The Inventor's Galvanic Fluid". This type of film was sufficient enough to amuse and amaze the audiences of 1907; so much so that a sequel was created a year later called "More Fun with Liquid Electricity" or "Galvanic Fluid".
From what I've seen of this film, the only thing that would amuse or amaze the audiences of today is…well…that…this type of film was sufficient enough to amuse and amaze the audiences of 1907.
written: 10/23/2002
