HOLIDAY FILMOGRAPHY PART 1 (1896 - 1906)

Landing At Low Tide (1899)

This is the first of a series of blog posts listing all the Holiday film titles I have found during my research over the past few years. Most of the information here as been sourced from Gifford, 2001, except the films released after 1994, the information for which I have gathered from the BFI database, and from the films themselves.

I have excluded American-British co-productions which have been funded mostly by American money, or have American stars, writers and/or directors, and therefore appear more ‘American’ than ‘British’. These include, for example: The Light in the Piazza (1961), The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1962), Two For The Road (1967), Funny Bones (1995) and Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2008).

Unfortunately, most of the early titles in this first entry (1896 - 1906) have now been lost.

1896:

Landing At Low Tide, R W Paul, Directed by Birt Acres

Comedy, Brighton

1897:

Children Paddling at the Seaside, G A Smith, Directed by GA Smith.

Comedy, Southwick

1898:

Sloper’s Visit To Brighton, Directed by James Williamson, Comedy, Brighton, Donkey rides, bathing

1899:

Landing At Low Tide, Haydon & Urry. Comedy

Landing At Low Tide (1899) - this is the earliest holiday film of which the BFI has a viewing copy

The Interrupted Courtship, Warwick Trading Company. Comedy,

Couple try to steal kiss in busy hotel lounge

They Do Such Things at Brighton, Warwick Trading Company,

Cast: Will Evans.

Comedy

1900:

An Incident on Brighton Pier, Directed by GA Smith. Comedy

‘The masher mashed’.

A Wet Day at the Seaside, RW Paul, Comedy,

Children make ‘seaside’ in their bathroom.

1901:

Interior of a Railway Carriage – Bank Holiday, Hepworth. Directed by Percy Stow, Comedy

1902:

Tommy Atkins and His Harriet on a Bank Holiday, Directed by GA Smith, Comedy, Coster couple dance

The Swells, RW Paul. Comedy, Men peep into girl’s bathing machine and die of shock

1903:

A Trip to Southend or Blackpool, Directed by James Williamson. Comedy, discomforts of a crowded railway compartment

1904:

The Great Sea Serpent, Directed by James Williamson. Comedy. Boy puts worm in seaside telescope.

Professor Richard Codman’s Punch & Judy Show, Directed by John Codman, Comedy, Llandudno, seaside puppet performance.

Mixed Bathing, Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy, Brighton. Fat husband flirts with swimming girls

Lovers on the Sands (aka A Stroll on the Sands), Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy, Brighton

On Brighton Pier, Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy, Brighton

A Day at Brighton, Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy, Brighton

A Trip to Paris (USA: An Englishman’s Trip to Paris from London), Hepworth, Directed by Lewin Fitzhamon. Comedy

1905:

Mr Brown’s Bathing Tent, Directed by Percy Stow. Comedy, Folkstone. Boys pin ‘Ladies’ sign on man’s bathing tent.

The Inquisitive Boots, Hepworth, Directed by Lewin Fitzhamon.

Cast: Sebastian Smith

Comedy, Hotel ‘Boots’ peeps through keyholes

The Annual Trip of the Mothers’ Meeting, Hepworth, Directed by Lewin Fitzhamon.

Cast: Sebastian Smith, Thurston Harris

Comedy, Southend

Father’s Picnic on the Sands, Cricks & Sharp. Comedy

Peeping Tom, Cricks & Sharp, Directed by Tom Green. Comedy, Hotel guest bores hole in wall and is caught by girl’s husband

1906:

When Father Got a Holiday (Reissue: 1913), Directed by Percy Stow. Comedy. Mother, father and large family go for a cycle ride

Seaside Lodgings, RW Paul, (Directed by JH Martin). Comedy

A Lodging House Comedy, Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy. Boots has revenge on drunken toff by changing room numbers.

Our Seaside Holiday, Sheffield Photographic Company, Directed by Frank Mottershaw. Comedy, Family of six go to seaside by train

Seaside Views, Cricks & Sharp, Directed by Tom Green. Comedy, Tramps peep into bathing machine and get caught

Caught by the Tide, Clarendon (Gau) Directed by Percy Stow. Adventure. Couple cut off by tide, are hauled to cliff top.

The Troubles of a Seaside Photographer, Walterdaw. Comedy, Mishaps of a photographer at seaside

When Cripples Meet, Gaumont. Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy, Margate. Invalids fight when Bath chairs collide

Her Morning Dip, Gaumont. Directed by Alf Collins. Comedy, Margate. Peeping Toms surprised when comely girl is revealed by her costume as bony

Rescued by Lifeboat, Gaumont. Directed by Alf Collins. Adventure, Margate. Lifeboat launched to rescue capsized trippers

The Phantom Ride: Then and Now

The phantom ride was a popular genre or filming technique of silent cinema. For the production of these films a camera was attached to the front of a train or other vehicle in order to capture the excitement of speed and motion. These early films usually only ran for a minute or less and often appeared as a fairground or theatrical attraction. For example, the early film pioneer R. W. Paul made a film entitled On a Runaway Motor Car Through Piccadilly Circus (1899) ‘which showed the view from a car ‘speeding’ through the streets’, probably created by ‘under-cranking’ the camera during filming (Chanan, 1980: 286).

Of perhaps more interest here, however, is Paul’s film from the previous year, A Switchback Railway (1898), for which a camera was attached to the front of a rollercoaster. Barnes (1983) comments that ‘audiences in those days were not accustomed to such cinematic view-points [sic] and would have found the film much more thrilling than we do today’ (Barnes, 1983: 17-18). He goes on to say that it is ‘an interesting film and still entertains, but its appeal today is far different from that which was originally intended’ (Barnes, 1993: 18). It is a valid comment, but it could be argued that Barnes is considering the film in the context of it being a novelty and a contrast to the ‘complexities of modern-day cinema’ (Barnes, 1983: 18). What should be considered is that although the phantom ride disappeared as a subject matter in its own right, due to the ‘narrativization of cinema’ and longer running times, it became incorporated into the narrative as a momentary ‘attraction’ (Elsaesser, 1990: 60; 56).

As Charles Musser suggests, as early as 1899 phantom rides ‘became incorporated into the travel narrative, enabling the showman to literalize the traveller’s movement through time and space…G. A. Smith made a one-shot film of a couple kissing in a railway carriage – a gag which had comic-strip antecedents. He suggested that showmen insert Kiss in the Tunnel into the middle of a phantom ride, after the train had entered the tunnel’ (Elsaesser, 1990: 128).

In an echo of R. W. Paul’s ‘switchback’ film, an exciting rollercoaster ride scene appears in the Blackpool Pleasure Beach sequence in Hindle Wakes (1927). The camera shots cut between point of view (POV) shots from the front of the rollercoaster, and shots of the main protagonists Fanny Hawthorn (Estelle Brody) and Allan Jeffcote (John Stuart) reacting to the thrill of the ride. Other Pleasure Beach ride POV shots appear in Sing As We Go (1934) and the documentary Holiday (1957), again combined with reaction shots from the holidaymakers in order to construct a thrilled reaction from the cinema-going audience. 

 

 The Big Dipper sequence from Hindle Wakes (1927)

In later years, the phantom ride also reappeared elsewhere in a different guise. One such example was the ‘Cine 2000’ at Alton Towers theme park which attracted visitors between 1980 – 1992. This was a large dome-shaped cinema which the audience stood inside, immersed in POV shots being projected on the concave ceiling of the dome. As the author of the Alton Towers Almanac website comments:

The Cine 2000 was a must have attraction in the early eighties, with many other parks around the country also installing them at about the same time… The movie itself was made up of specially filmed scenes on roller coasters, racing cars, and such like. The idea worked well, and many times I can remember people falling over, as they completely lost their sense of balance while watching (Alton Towers Almanac).

Today, phantom rides also appear as a marketing tool on the Blackpool Pleasure Beach website and on the Pleasure Beach YouTube channel, which features POV videos from the front of the Pepsi Max Big One, Infusion, and Revolution rollercoaster rides, for instance. Similarly, there are numerous amateur videos uploaded on YouTube by thrill-seeking holidaymakers who have either filmed their POV of the rides, or else, turned their cameras onto themselves to capture their faces as they scream. The phantom ride may have faded as a cinema genre or subject, but these examples prove that it still lives on today in some form, with marketing teams and amateur filmmakers considering the POV shots from these rides as worthwhile content for sharing on the internet.

POVs from 'The Big One' from the Pleasure Beach YouTube channel

Bibliography & External Links:

Barnes, John, 1983, Pioneers of the British Film, London: Bishopsgate Press

Chanan, Michael, The Dream That Kicks, The Prehistory and Early Years of Cinema in Britain, 1980, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Elsaesser, Thomas, (eds) Early Cinema, Space, Frame, Narrative, (1990), London: BFI

www.towersalmanac.com/areas/rides.php?id=47

www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com