Edwin S. Porter in Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)

The Academy celebrates the year 1906 and its developmental contributions to motion pictures with a program of selected films in “A Century Ago: The Films of 1906” at the Linwood Dunn Theater.

After years as a technological novelty presented as added attractions in vaudeville lineups and at fairs and in contained machines called kinetoscopes, motion pictures finally arrived at a home of their own in 1906, when local storefront nickelodeons expanded their operations dramatically within a matter of a few months. Although only a handful of nickelodeons were open at the end of 1905, they proliferated to 35 states the following year. Filmmakers were shooting films both in studios and on location while continuing to push the boundaries of narrative storytelling.

“A Century Ago: The Films of 1906” will conduct a partial survey of turn-of-the-20th-century international filmmaking with trick films, actualities, primitive dramas and gag films. It will be highlighted by the earliest known example of frame-by-frame animation, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, by J. Stuart Blackton of Vitagraph; the surrealistic film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, based on a Winsor McCay comic strip, from the Edison Studios; a hand-tinted print of Voyage autour d'une Étoile, from the Pathé Studios in France; actuality footage of the San Francisco Earthquake; and the U.S. premiere of newly restored fragments of The Story of the Kelly Gang from Australia. The program will also feature such popular box-office hits as Dr. Dippy's Sanitarium, The Village Cut-Up, In the Haunts of Rip Van Winkle, The Impossible Convicts (all Biograph), Motor Pirates, The "?" Motorist and A Visit to Peek Frean and Co.'s Biscuit Works (all from British companies).

Most prints are in 35mm and are drawn from the collections of the Academy Film Archive, the Library of Congress, George Eastman House, the British Film Institute, the National Film and Sound Archive of the Australian Film Commission and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Michael Mortilla.