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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 92 movies from Robert W. Paul
A magical glowing white motorcar ignores policemen, drives up buildings, flies through outer space, and can transform into a horse and carriage.
Oct 1906
Here we present a picture that simply convulses an audience with laughter. The scene opens in the bedroom of a hotel. A traveler appears, evidently a "little worse for wear." After stretching and yawning, he proceeds to disrobe. He throws off his coat and vest, but to his surprise and anguish, he suddenly finds himself clothed in a continental uniform. He throws this off in anger, but immediately a policeman's costume flies on him. This is in turn thrown aside in great rage and he finds himself clothed in a soldier's uniform. At last, thinking himself successful, he makes for the bed and finds a skeleton complacently resting on his pillow. The bed suddenly disappears, leaving him seated on the floor, and great quantities of bed clothes rain down from the ceiling. The picture ends leaving the audience simply convulsed in laughter. (Edison Catalog)
Aug 1901
May 1896
A short documentary about industrial whaling. The surviving footage runs for approximately 12 minutes.
Jan 1908
A Swiss tourist knocks the head off a negro waiter.
Dec 1902
An artist draws the head of a pretty girl, takes the drawing off the paper and places it on a small table, turning the image into the head of a real woman. He then continuous drawing the lady, one body part after the other.
Oct 1901
Jan 1900
The famous acrobats in the above title appear in a marvellous acrobatic act. There are three barrels arranged on the stage. The boys, blindfolded, stand on opposite sides of the stage, and jump from one barrel into the other until they both land in the same barrel at the same time. They then jump backwards onto the stage over the two barrels. One table is then mounted upon another and the center barrel is placed on top. The brothers still blindfolded jump one each into a barrel and from them to the first to the second table and from the second table into the barrel on top of the second table. They then jump backwards onto the stage. This is pronounced by show people to be the most marvellous acrobatic feat that has ever been introduced. (Edison Catalog)
A train snaking around Chamonix, Switzerland, with a steep Alpine slope inches away from the tracks.
The Switchback Railway was the forerunner of the roller coaster. Passengers sit in a small car which trundles up a swooping railway track then performs a 180 degree turn at its summit before swooping back down on a parallel track.
Jan 1898
Jan 1897
Aug 1896
An old proprietor is startled and haunted by the strange happenings inside his curiosity shop.
Husband comes home late and wakes the wife. Based on a popular stage play.
A stationary camera looks on as two dapper gents play a game of chess. One drinks and smokes, and when he looks away, his opponent moves two pieces. A fight ensues, first with the squirting of a seltzer bottle, then with fisticuffs. The combatants wrestle each other to the floor and continue the fight out of the camera's view, hidden by the table. The waiter arrives to haul both of them out.
Aug 1903
Jan 1903
Mephistopholes causes an artist's model to disappear.
Jan 1899
A barmaid plies a swell with smiles and with cherries from a box that's just been delivered. When she refuses a cherry to a roughly-dressed tradesman who runs a tab at the bar, he pays off his debt in a huff, using all his week's pay. He then storms penniless and without provisions into his ill-furnished house where his wife and two children, ill-clad and ill-fed, cower. Is there any hope for him and for his family? If he does realize how low he's sunk, what help is there to lift him up? Will the family ever know the taste of cherries?
Jun 1904
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 midgets is knocked out. The sport whose favorite won the fight takes the money with a look of satisfaction, and replaces his man in his pocket. The loser looks very much disgusted as he picks up his man and puts him back in his pocket. Very mystifying.
Mar 1903