For many years I have only heard mention of films made before D.W. Griffith and have only seen brief clips of these pioneering films, including samples of the classic films A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thanks to Image Entertainment's Landmarks of Early Films, these gems are now readily available.

What a treasure this collection turns out to be! It's like having your own personal film history museum accessible with a click of the remote. Covering short films chronologically from 1886 to 1913, there are many interesting gems here, but don't expect this collection to be available at your local Blockbuster. While entertaining and educational for film aficionados, these early films are not designed for current masses suckled on cineplex fare.

An additional bonus is Dean W. Duncan's excellent essay to give historical perspective of the collection. The film compilation, gleaned from the extensive Blackhawk Film's archives, is a definitive remedy to the usual oversimplification of film history. While first rate copies of the textbook films that film students will be familiar with are all here, so are many obscure items.

The beginnings of cinema are noted with a Homage to Eadweard Maybridge that demonstrates how a series of still photographs can be combined to create a moving image. Pictured are artistic styled photographs of a nude woman doing such mundane activities as walking up some steps, descending the steps, and picking up a child. Although these short clips seem primitive, this type of photography sparked the invention of Edison’s kinetoscope, and motion pictures were on the way.

The Edison kinetoscope films include the classic shorts that film students expect: "The Kiss," "Serpentine Dances," "Cockfight," and "The Barber Shop." These are all brief silent shorts captured with a stationary camera that are completely without plot, and only of interest for historical reasons. More action occurs in "Seminary Girls," but don’t expect nudes here – these are fully clothed women having a pillow fight.

Samples of the first commercial films are also included, interesting to note considering how they inspired our first geniuses of film like D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin. Reminiscent of many home movies and travelogues, these films record visual snatches the 1895-7 time period. A large number of women with wide hats exit a factory in one short and the "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat" brings images reminiscent of the French Impressionists. Other subjects include a "Snowball Fight," a "Card Party," and "New York: Broadway at Union Square."

There are other clips that record more significant history. Included are actual moving film of President McKinley recorded in 1897 at his home, views of the New York skyline in 1903 along the North River, and fires and rubble in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Touches of humor are found in this collection with such pieces as "The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog" (1905), which is little more than a vaudevillian piece designed with a punch line at the end--easy to guess from the title. "The Policeman's Little Run" (1907) is a humorous piece that shows rudimentary elements of editing to create a coherent story, and "Winsor McCay and His Moving Comics" demonstrates pioneering cartoon animation with a well known newspaper cartoonist in 1911.

Although other films are included in the collection, the three of most interest are A Trip to the Moon (1902), The Great Train Robbery (1903), and The Girl and Her Trust (1912). The first two are very well known with clips universally shown to film students.

Most everyone has seen the famous rocket to the moon clip, but the DVD presents Georges Méliès' entire film. A professional magician, Méliès applied his craft to hundreds of films, but A Trip to the Moon (Voyage dans la lune, Le) is by far his most famous. Laughably the "astronauts" are all dressed in street clothes on the moon, waving and then simultaneously drawing blankets over themselves as human faced stars of the Big Dipper look at them. But the short film is a hoot! Standing out is the sequence where Méliès borrows from his magician roots and turns the moon creatures into poofs of smoke. Besides creating the first science fiction fantasy on film, Méliès pioneers basic concepts of editing to visually communicate his narrative.

Returning to reality-based film is Edwin Porter's The Great Train Robbery, where we see early awareness of editing techniques to carry the melodrama. We also see early attempts at colorization, with reddish gun shot smoke and a dance scene that has yellow and purple dressed ladies. As amateurish as this appears, I'd rather watch these amateurish colorizations than any of Ted Turner's recent travesties.

One of the most sophisticated films appearing here is the American Biograph Company production of The Girl and Her Trust. Here actual attention to acting adds to the mix, and the filmmaker has a deeper understanding of how to use the film medium to carry the melodrama. A lady telegraph operator is "unwillingly" kissed by a fellow worker. Watching her face closely, the camera reveals what the co-worker doesn't realize--that she really feels flattered and likes the guy. (Didn't they do that in American Beauty too?)

This film is far more varied than the others. The editing cuts are more creative, the camera angles more varied, and the shots vary between long, medium, and close-ups. Notably the more advanced techniques of The Girl and Her Trust foreshadow the future greatness of one American Biograph Company worker--D.W. Griffith.

This DVD compilation is definitely not for everyone. Most people will be bored completely with this, but if you are a film fanatic or just love to delve into history, Landmarks of Early Films is worth searching for. Only extremely well stocked video stores run by a real cinephile, or libraries with large film archives may have a copy. More likely, film geeks will have to purchase their own copies.